GSW Headquarters
Sauerbruch Hutton. Berlin, Germany
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Name of work in English
GSW Headquarters
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Name of work in original language
GSW Hauptverwaltung
Prize year
EUmies Awards 2001
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Work Location
Berlin, Germany
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Studio
Sauerbruch Hutton
EUmies Awards 2001 Shortlisted
This design forms the extension to an office tower which was one of the first projects to be built during the reconstruction of Berlin in the 1950s. The design endeavours to combine the as found fragments of the city into a three-dimensional composition through which the existing building is able to be reintegrated into its context.
Collaborators
Project architect: Juan Lucas Young; Collaborator (office): Not Defined J. Ludloff, Not Defined B. Lilley, Not Defined P. Engelbrecht, Not Defined A. Bader-Hardt, Not Defined G. Gerritsen, Not Defined M. Theden, Not Defined G. Albretti, Not Defined M. Bl, Not Defined A.F. Chollet, Not Defined D. Dih, Not Defined C. Galv, Not Defined I. Ghazali, Not Defined C. Hagmann, Not Defined F. Held, Not Defined S. Hofmann, Not Defined K.F. H, Not Defined H. Jirout, Not Defined F. K, Not Defined J. Kirby, Not Defined H. Langston-Jones, Not Defined C. Marquart, Not Defined M. Matschewski, Not Defined F. , Not Defined W. Thiessen, Not Defined A. Weber, Not Defined S. Wirth; Structural engineering: Not Defined ARGE Rohbau, Not Defined Z; Quantity surveyor: Not Defined Harms & Partner; Engineering: Not Defined Ove Arup & Partners; Design: Not Defined Arup GmbH, Not Defined ARGE IGH mbH with Arup GmbH; Structural engineering: Not Defined Dewhurst Macfarlane and Partners, Not Defined Ove Arup & Partners, Not Defined Arup GmbH; Others: Not Defined ARGE Arup GmbH with IGH mbH (site supervision), Not Defined Emmer, Pfenninger + Partner; Acoustical: Not Defined Akustik-Ingenieurb
Program
Office
Completion
2000
The idea of conglomerate growth is not only accepted but put forward as a model for urban development. So the new ensemble responds as much to the baroque logic of the street plan as it does to the rules of 19th-century urbanism. At the same time it absorbs the object-like quality of the 50s tower and registers the confrontational space which had developed between the high-rises on either side of the Berlin Wall. In this combination of the disparate spatial configurations of consecutive generations, the new high-rise slab is the element associated with the present and the future.
The design of this building is generated by a concern for the workplace in the city, and by a committment to an architecture that is economical with the (built and natural) resources of the environment. The new highrise not only offers an exemplary working environment in its passive control of energy consumption, at the same time it redefines an architecture in which the value of sensuous space is reassessed.
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