Hochhaus am Alexanderplatz Baufeld D3 in Berlin

URBAN AMBITION
In the center of Berlin, the exceptional site reclaim a dual approach: a metropolitan approach, with the creation of a new Landmark for the city; a local approach for the famous confluence place between AlexanderPlatz and Karl Marxallee. The tower draws a new face to this neighborhood and also invests the underground: free the ground, create new access, give a formal and functional coherence. Our intervention recognizes the potential of the void as a tool of transformation.

A NEW PLACE FOR BERLIN-MITTE
The site is a powerful urban axis, between the famous AlexanderPlatz and the Avenue Karl Marx Alley. This privileged situation makes it possible to create incredible connections and urban situations. Our goal is to reinforce this continuity. On the other hand its location offers proximity to a big metropolitan transport node. Our goal is also to build a building in dialogue with the existing volumes, characteristic of the second half of the 20th century, by a clear prismatic mass. Enter the new tower in Berlin’s architectural heritage and its wider context.

RELATIONSHIP WITH THE CITY
The facades are built parallel to the Karl Marx Allee to integrate access to the office tower. On the side of the G2 passage, the building keeps the distances with the neighboring building to create a commercial artery. On the side of the square and Bernhard Beiss Strasse, the building offers an architecture with homogeneous proportions, a frame and right angles. Only an interruption in the South East angle forms a covered place under a cantilever. The logic of the volumes between them makes it possible to create a metropolitan event in dialogue with AlexanderPlatz and the city of Berlin.

A HYBRID SET
The project is a hybrid building, consisting in a tower, aerial, with metropolitan dimensions, and a base attached to the street, with more urban dimensions. The complex integrates three main programs: offices, housing and shops. Our proposal is to create a building with a special character for each of these functions, stratified as three different volumes.
• The office tower is a simple prism. The volume is calibrated to meet the programmatic needs while writing a dialogue with the other emergences of the city.
• The housing ring is the second layer of the architectural ensemble. Like an aerial block, this volume, with the cells placed around a courtyard, explores the typology of the old housing buildings of Berlin. Rectangular and sober from the outside, it hides a common green space.
• The shopping place. An L-shaped volume embraces a big void creating a strong visual link between Karl Marx Allee and Alexander Platz. This is the AlexanderSquare. Thanks to this new building, the two major spaces are not separated but joined together. The large cantilever offers a South oriented covered space, and brings a continuity of public spaces under the ring of housing. This new void does not only create horizontal but also vertical continuities. Slipping under the ring, the volume is a majestic void letting the air and light, like a large porch reinforcing the attractiveness of the shops.
• Connection to the transport system. The connection to the metro is clear and direct. The covered square goes slowly down to the metrostation in the form of covered steps. This gradation is a kind of city theater, where pedestrians can sit sheltered from the rain. The underground level, open to the air and light, completes the commercial activity and accentuates the urban intensity of the city.

ENVELOPE
A differentiation of volumes for each program. In the same logic, the facade of each volume has its own writing. The envelope of the offices is defined with a very readable vertical frame of 1,35m. The rhythm of regular lines accentuates the vertical dimension of the volume. A serie of extra clear glass panels slightly inclined along a horizontal axis, creates a glass scale effect. The facade of the housing ring is designed as a scultptural piece in white marble, to create a relationship with the expression of the surrounding buildings and to sublimate the cantilever. The last volume with shops will be made with a glass facade to maximize the visibility. The glazed facade will follow the visitors to the underground connection with the metro. The covered square created by the large cantilever will build with stone, in continuity with the materiality of Alexander Platz. The roofs will maximize the vegetated surfaces. A large garden will be developed in the heart of the housing and the green roof terrace of the podium will offer a beautiful open space.

LANDSCAPE AND MATERIAL
The project is about integrating subtly into the existing context while offering an atypical Landmark. AlexanderPlatz’s architectural ensemble has a subtle color scheme in white, cream and gray. We also offer shades of gray, white and silver. The metal side of the tower and the marble levels of housing emphasizes the volume as a landmark. From afar, the offices volume will present a variation of colors, the glazed and metallic skin changing its appearance according to time and light ...