Architectural Details
What sets the GSW Haus apart from other office buildings in Berlin is its urban planning concept.
In terms of the composition of building volume and the architectural implementation, the complex incorporates elements of the city structure from the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries and integrates the previously aesthetically isolated high-rise office from the 1950s into a new overall composition. Instead of slavishly recreating the familiar Berlin block style of the 19th century, this project not only accepts the juxtaposition of different city generations that is so typical of Berlin, but embraces it as a guiding principle. In the interest of urban sustainability, what is already there is not rejected, but simply reinterpreted and integrated.
View of the GSW
Writing in the February 2000 issue of the German architectural magazine "Baumeister", Amelia Kausch describes the building as follows: "The old headquarters, an unloved high-rise point block dating from the 1950s (architects: Schwebes und Schoszberger), was to be renovated and extended. Sauerbruch Hutton's proposal was the only one to resist the specifications of the call for entries, at least at first sight.
While they felt that 'critical reconstruction' represented an overly intellectual approach to urban planning, they relied on material and haptic impressions.
Rather than disguising the old behind perimeters, they integrated it within a four-part building complex. From its layout, the concept underpinning the design can be regarded less as a fixed structure: The city thrives on movement, and this is also how one must celebrate and experience this site. The architects positioned the curved and elegantly glazed high-rise slab alongside the existing building and supported it on two three-storey, dark grey tiled bases. At the foot of the high-rise building, an oversized yellow/green 'pillbox' is perched on top of the 110 metre long cross bar that runs along Kochstraße.
While they felt that 'critical reconstruction' represented an overly intellectual approach to urban planning, they relied on material and haptic impressions.
Rather than disguising the old behind perimeters, they integrated it within a four-part building complex. From its layout, the concept underpinning the design can be regarded less as a fixed structure: The city thrives on movement, and this is also how one must celebrate and experience this site. The architects positioned the curved and elegantly glazed high-rise slab alongside the existing building and supported it on two three-storey, dark grey tiled bases. At the foot of the high-rise building, an oversized yellow/green 'pillbox' is perched on top of the 110 metre long cross bar that runs along Kochstraße.
Site plan
The architects acknowledge the Baroque cityscape by positioning the low flat-roofed building on the perimeter and aligning the height of the bases and 'pillbox' with the gutters of the adjoining buildings. At the same time, curved building edges add a feeling of dynamism to the rigid forms. [...] In this way, they [the architects] are emphasising the urban planning concept according to which each building should have its own identity. But on the western side of the high-rise slab, it's not just the colours, but also the depth of the façade and the movement of the bright perforated plate shading doors that give the building its visible presence and a degree of sensuality. Had Wassily Kandinsky become an architect, he might have created something similar."
Building complex comprising low building, pillbox and high-rise slab
Visitors enter the building through a large entrance hall, whose mosaic tiles carry over the material and function of the streetscape outside. The illuminated blue reception counter, from which the entire technical and functional use of the complex can be controlled, acts as a key visual highlight. An adjustable exhibition system in an area of the foyer that can be partitioned offers a wide range of presentation possibilities. The entrance hall has already demonstrated its communicative impact as a function room on numerous occasions.
Reception counter/view into the low-rise building
GSW shares the office and retails space with other users. Users and tenants in the building can choose from virtually unlimited room configuration options in the high-rise slab: from completely enclosed single offices through to largely glazed room combinations (combined offices) all the way to large-scale, working environments extending over entire storeys.
Open-plan offices
Employees of the GSW Group moved into the building complex in July 1999. Although the central building control system was not yet fully operational, the new occupants experienced the positive effect of the climatic concept subjectively directly for themselves. Even without mechanical support, the complex energy concept with its ventilation and thermal storage functions resulted in comfortable low room temperatures on these hot summer days. This effect that dispensed with the need for wasteful artificial air conditioning systems thus vindicated the approach taken during the planning phase involving extensive energy simulations.