Integrational residential project at the wholesale

The main idea for the project, which was initiated by the architects ifau and Heide & von Beckerath in cooperation with the Selbstbaugenossenschaft Berlin eG, was to offer a mix of live and work units that would meet the needs of artists and creative professionals. The starting point for the building’s layout and design was a collaborative and socially mixed utilisation concept. Moreover, the comparatively low land price allowed the cross- subsidisation of cooperative residential and studio spaces within the project, which can be let at a sustainable rent. The architect´s interpretation of the binding local development plan makes use of the maximum permitted building volume.

The architectural concept is based on three connected horizontal access cores as well as the relation between the building envelope and five internal atriums. These parameters describe and inform the type of units and integrate the building into the neighbourhood. All apartments and studios have different sizes, room heights and standards of fittings. They can be combined and some of them even linked directly in the design development stage to adapt the spatial concept to the occupiers’ needs. The structure is a combined cross-wall and column construction. All ground floor spaces are transparent and can be extended into the adjacent public areas. The building envelope combines ceramic elements, windows and fixed glazing in its facade.

Generous balconies are situated in the south and west. The owners and representatives of the cooperative will jointly develop the project’s social and spatial focus. In view of this, the public and semi-public interfaces with the neighbourhood are given specific attention.

The building is designed with cost-efficient prefabricated components and could be mostly constructed to the energy efficiency standard 70 of the German Energy Saving Ordinance using mainly environmentally sustainable building materials. Access concepts and floor plans are flexible to accommodate possible conversion and retrofitting as well as adaptation to changing demands. The design of the floor plans for the 66 apartments is both demand-based and user-oriented. Seventeen studios and three commercial units are designed as blanks so that the different needs of individual occupants can be incorporated in the standard of fittings. The decision-making process determining the type and position of communal facilities and the development of a binding standard for fittings took place in close collaboration with the building group.

Material Used:

1. ceramic tiles – facade cladding – AGROB BUCHTAL, Series Craft

In Berlin Kreuzberg a new concept for apartment building has been completed with the “Integrative building project at the old flower market“, where the architects have taken over the planning and implementation with the owners and a social operator.

A four-floor building has arisen, consisting of apartments, studios, workshops and commercial space. The workshops and commercial space are on the ground floor and the studios and apartments in the floors above. Some of the apartments belong to the community association for the deaf, which uses the premises for assisted living. In accordance with the concept, work and home should be linked with each other, which the ifau and Heide & von Beckerath architectural practices have succeeded in doing outstandingly.

Bare concrete and large window fronts convey uniformity and are intended to express the cooperative thinking of the project. Cool white light underlines the puristic architecture. The JUNG LS 990 classic switch in the LS CUBE surface-mounted version was used. On bare concrete, the switches in white become design objects.