The commercial building is part of an ensemble with new and converted studio and office spaces in Berlin-Lichtenberg, situated on the banks of the river Spree. Between the 1920s and the 1940s, the site was the location of Berlin’s largest outdoor swimming pool, featuring water warmed with waste heat from the nearby Klingenberg thermal power station. Later on, the customs authority of the GDR was based there until 1990. The shape of the building is determined by three givens: a roundabout, that was formerly used to facilitate the access of the property during the presence of the East German customs authority on the site, several trees that are worthy of protection, and the required distance to a listed adjacent building. Despite the different types of influencing factors—road planning, tree population, monument protection—the curved segments create a formal coherence.
The building is not intended for specific uses, but as a cost-effective and robust structure that can accommodate different forms of usage like a shelf: hotel premises, exhibition rooms, office spaces, and commercial units on the ground floor, to name a few. Where the cubature and orientation of the rooms allow sufficient light incidence, single-story rooms are provided, which are suitable for hotel rooms or office spaces. In order to have sufficient light in the rooms even in the lower parts of the building, the rooms facing the street are designed as maisonettes, which gives the building its two-story appearance. Due to the proximity to the river Spree and the resulting groundwater level, no underground car park is feasible. Instead, it is accommodated on the roof top, accessible via a car elevator.
© Brandlhuber+ Team
© bloomimages Berlin GmbH
© bloomimages Berlin GmbH