Haus 2+ is a modern and sustainable timber infill that redefines the entrance to Holzmarkt 25, a cooperative-led urban cultural quarter on the banks of the river Spree in Berlin’s Friedrichshain district. Designed by Office ParkScheerbarth, a Berlin-based practice for architecture and urban planning, Haus 2+ is the first all-timber building in Holzmarkt 25.

Holzmarkt 25

Once a timber market, the Holzmarkt area later became a border zone for East Germany, and, after German reunification, a vacant brownfield site. From 2003, it was home to Bar25, the renowned open-air techno club. Following Bar25's closure in 2010, its founders and regulars formed cooperatives to preserve the area from commercial development. Through a partnership with the Swiss fund Stiftung Abendrot, a 75-year lease was secured. Since opening in 2012, Holzmarkt 25 has transformed into a thriving urban quarter. Today, the project stands as an example of user-driven urban development, with spaces for concerts, art and culture, gastronomy, original shops, and small businesses.

Colourful geometric volumes

With its forward-looking design and sustainable ethos, Haus 2+ stands out as a deliberate gesture within the cultural quarter’s seemingly improvised patchwork of buildings. Fully clad in vivid red wood, the colourful three-storey structure marks the entrance to Holzmarkt 25. Office ParkScheerbarth envisaged a complex, curving form, made up of simple geometric volumes that offer individual room layouts for the building’s diverse tenants: across 240 square metres, Haus 2+ is shared by a bakery, tattoo studio, booking agency, artist, photo studio, and physiotherapist.

Lightweight wood construction

The project’s tight budget and small plot size necessitated efficient use of space and resources. As an extension of Haus 2, a neighbouring concert hall, Haus 2+ makes use of the hall’s exterior stairwell, thereby removing the need to build an independent carbon-intensive circulation space. It also uses an existing basement as a floor slab. However, because of the basement’s limited load-bearing capacity, the building required lightweight construction — wood offered the perfect solution, combining sustainability with structural lightness.

Haus 2+ combines three timber construction systems: exterior walls made from spruce-pine frames, slabs from spruce box elements, and internal walls from bonded OSB mass timber, all clad with a larch facade. FSC-certified, regionally prefabricated, and screwed as opposed to glued, the wooden components can be disassembled, separated, and reused. The only non-timber element is a steel beam, required to stiffen the structure and realise the cantilever necessary for the architectural vision. Prefabrication of the structural elements improved build quality and reduced the time needed for construction — Haus 2+ was built in just eight days.

Sustainable elements

Haus 2+ is powered by the site’s district heating station, while its roof terrace connects seamlessly to Holzmarkt’s network of arcades, bridges, and balconies. Enhanced wall insulation improves thermal performance, and optimised windows support natural cross-ventilation, a passive stack effect, and daylighting. A small green roof further reduces soil sealing and creates valuable habitat for insects.