High-rise Gate 2

One of the most important fields of tension within which high-rise buildings are developed is the one established between the local relationship, which every building has with its immediate surroundings, and the global relationship, which particularly tall buildings establish with an entire part of the city. These relationship structures are not always in harmony with each other.

One of the most important tasks therefore is to mediate between these different scales.

In urban planning terms we see a clearly dominant direction that is shaped by the prominent streets Döblerhofstraße and Leopold-Böhm-Straße and finally by the panorama route of a former railway line. Despite the dissolution of the structures in the immediate surroundings we believe that the building should refer to this main direction and integrate itself in the clearly recognisable block grid and even make it more strongly perceptible. Gate 2 would then become a striking corner pier of this urban planning typology.

On the basis of this existing, but highly efficient situation three goals were defined:

The view of the gasometers, at least in urban space with the classic eaves height, must be revealed consequently in this area the building is deliberately moved back from the existing diagonal to create a significant articulated public space that serves as the public access to both the projects on the site.

The volumes that can be realized should be fully exploited. Thus our second goal was to make an approach to the diagonal again over large areas of the building, at least as far as the rule of the “two hour shadow” allowed, in order to achieve the required cubage.

But as it grows in height the building should again refer to the overall structure of the block edges and street spaces as referred to above. This is the third goal.