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HAUS 1, Atelier Gardens

Berlin, Germany

With its striking yellow facade and distinctive exterior staircase, a major retrofit of HAUS 1 has transformed a dated office building from the 1990s into an eye-catching landmark for Atelier Gardens in Berlin.

Once the historic home of film making in Germany the campus is now home to a range of impact organisations in a vibrant atmosphere of close collaboration.

HAUS 1 is the latest building to be transformed on the site, which was home to filmmaking since the 1920s. Situated at the southern edge of Berlin’s Tempelhof Airport, the masterplan has transformed the campus of the Berliner Union Film Ateliers (BUFA) as part of a vision to expand the site’s userbase beyond filmmakers to encompass all forms of ‘change makers’, including impact organisations and individuals with a focus on climate activism and social justice.

Once the historic home of film making in Germany, the new creative campus is now home to a range of organisations working across impact and media in a vibrant atmosphere of close collaboration.

º£½ÇÊÓƵ was engaged to deliver building services (MEP) engineering across the transformation of HAUS 1 into a striking new landmark for the campus.

All the out-dated and inefficient existing plant and infrastructure was replaced with low energy, sustainable alternatives.

Our team advised on the incorporation of a rainwater harvesting system within the irrigation strategy for the exterior landscaping.

Challenge

º£½ÇÊÓƵ was engaged to deliver building services (MEP) engineering across the building’s refit. We worked closely with the wider design team, led by co-architects HS-Architekten and MVRDV, to ensure the transformation delivered comfortable and highly sustainable workspaces to time and within budget.

The aesthetic vision of the architects was to create raw, exposed interiors, which provided highly adaptable workspaces for quick-moving impact organisations. One of the key challenges for our MEP experts was to design an MEP strategy that ensured efficient and impactful building systems, while ensuring that the plant and infrastructure on show was also installed with an eye for aesthetic neatness.

Originally built in 1997, the grey office building previously contributed little to the character of the campus. Given its location next to the entrance of Atelier Gardens, as well as a height that makes it visible from the former airfield of Tempelhof, the decision was made to transform the building into an iconic presence on the neighbouring Oberlandstraße and an emblematic symbol of the transformation of the BUFA campus.

Solution

In terms of MEP systems, all the out-dated and inefficient existing plant and infrastructure was replaced, allowing our team to start with a clean slate to create an MEP strategy that provided everything from modern data requirements to efficient and low-energy heating and cooling systems – connecting to a campus-wide low energy heating network.

The building has been extended with a timber pavilion of cross-laminated prefab modules, with bio-based materials and healthy finishes, including a clay ceiling. A living roof of native plants completes the newly accessible rooftop, which now also serves to collect rainwater, feeding into a comprehensive water retention plan implemented across the site.

Our team advised on the incorporation of this rainwater harvesting system within the irrigation strategy for the exterior landscaping.

The green landscaping, new roof insulation, and sunshades on the building’s two glass facades reduce heat gain in the summer, improving the building’s climate resilience, while low-temperature underfloor heating moderates the indoor climate in the cold months.

All lighting has been converted to energy-efficient LED systems and the sanitary fittings are all water efficient, including low water-use WCs that will be flushed with recycled rainwater from the next phase of the campus’ rainwater harvesting system.

Our team also installed new power supplies and data feeds, to enable an environment of innovation throughout the building. All windows are fully openable to enable natural ventilation throughout.

Value

With its focus on reusing as much of the structure as possible, and giving preference to durable, recyclable materials with a low environmental footprint whenever new materials were required, HAUS 1 shows how building transformations can do more with less. This spirit of the project treading lightly on the environment was extended to its highly efficient, low energy MEP systems.

Our experts played a key role, working with a wide range of stakeholders and collaborators throughout the design team, to ensure the vision for the building was successfully realised.