Project voice:
My vision of the BERLIN DECKS is to create a place where we can feel comfortable and work together. A lively urban neighborhood, which is good for everyone: the environment and togetherness. One that lets us all grow together.
I would not want to prioritize between “grow” and “together” at all. You can see at the current time how important “together” is and that you can only achieve certain goals together and that egoism simply doesn’t work. But “growing” also has an essential raison d’être. Because it is only human to want to grow and to develop. Many challenging problems (e.g. climate change) can only be solved if we grow together and develop new ideas.
With the approach of acting alone and the lack of will to change” we will not solve it – that’s why we have to “grow together”.
Especially as a project manager, you have to be aware of the responsibility you bear. Such properties are built for eternity, or at least for several generations. In this way, you can also make a contribution to the climate. After all, we shape the spaces in which we live. This has given rise to our vision of creating a place where we can grow together and generate added value for the environment.
I think the BERLIN DECKS are trying to address a number of sustainability issues: Clearly, there is the issue of ecological sustainability in construction: We build with wood hybrid construction, we save in cement, and we have a ceramic facade that is very durable.
But it is also sustainable in the sense of togetherness and working climate, that we create areas where people feel comfortable and rooms whose acoustics and climate are good for the people who work there.
But also sustainable in the sense of long-term: We are now building a property that will ideally stand for 100 years. That’s why we also want to try to think in terms of space so that we can respond to future demands. There used to be workshops which are now loft offices, and these can also be used differently.
Last but not least, we have of course also considered economic sustainability: Namely, to show that what we build here also works. That it will not “die in beauty”, but is an ambitious project that pays off and has the added value that we can all benefit from a sustainable product: So that we can live here and not harm the environment in the process.
Basically, it is certain that every project you develop in Berlin always has a high value for the city and the surrounding area.
The BERLIN DECKS are particularly noteworthy in this respect, as we are giving back to the city a former industrial site that was used industrially for centuries and was closed to visitors. It was not possible to enter this site for a long time, but we are opening it up to the city again – also for inner-city industry and to re-locate production. In this way, we can show that such mixes of uses are also compatible in Berlin. We create added value because we give back a place or open it for the city, where you can see that a new quarter can arise in a perhaps previously unknown location and Berlin gains a lively new piece of mixed office, production, daycare and gastronomy.
I have been associated with BEOS since 2011, starting out as a classic intern and then ending up in Berlin with a stop in Cologne. For several years now, I have therefore had the great fortune, for which I am really very grateful, to be able to learn with many great people at BEOS and Swiss Life and also to experiment to a certain extent. In this process, I recognize what spaces are being sought and what people need to feel comfortable. When I came to Berlin, I was working in investment and the product was offered to us. It was an industrial area, which was also used accordingly: Trucks drove around here every day, loading steel, and it was a raw industrial property for which we came up with the BERLIN DECKS concept together with many partners and companions.
We asked ourselves: What have we learned along the way that also works? What do we think a neighborhood needs? What do we think people like and where it will develop in the long term? And from the answers to these questions, we then developed the BERLIN DECKS concept. We set ourselves the goal of creating a lot of community space, green space like urban gardening, but also an inner courtyard where people can exchange ideas. Especially currently in the time of the corona pandemic, many people will still ask: How do we actually want to work?
I am convinced that we can create many spaces here where people can also exchange ideas informally. You can be creative.
Unfortunately, we had to cut down 4 trees during the construction phase, but we are planning to plant 50 new trees. It really will also be much greener here and I do have to say it as project manager, but with the waterfront location I would of course also very much like to have my office here myself.
Totally. The BERLIN DECKS were shaped by the backyard culture of Berlin, because we see that the centrality and the theme of the industrial area give us the opportunity to bring together uses that also existed in the past.
In the past, it was quite natural to have a workshop with production on the first floor and apartments upstairs. Now you can’t have housing here, but there is housing right in the adjacent neighborhood.
Of course, my personal wish is that it will be a very colorful campus with a wide variety of uses, and that if people exchange ideas, new themes will emerge.
We’ll have to see what it ultimately becomes, but the wish is that it will be a very colorful neighborhood in which we also provide areas for daycare centers, for restaurants, but also for small craftsmen’s yards. The neighborhood should also be alive in the evenings, simply because of its proximity to the city center and the wide variety of values involved in creating production value. Tenants from both the high-end office and the painter’s workshop should find a home, feel at home, and thus strengthen the sense of togetherness.
The interview was conducted by Svea Fina.