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Elbarkaden HafenCity Hamburg
The Elbarkaden building complex forms an important part of the largest urban development project currently being undertaken in Europe – the HafenCity Hamburg. The privileged position along the waterside at Magdeburg Port, the surrounding historic “Speicherstadt” warehouse district and the demand for a comprehensively sustainable building shaped the design. In addition to the German headquarters of Greenpeace and ateliers for Designxport, it is also intended to provide a diverse range of apartments. This triple use will be recognisable from outside and helps to meet the architectural demands for this exclusive location.
How the judges assessed it:
“The large-scale ensemble of buildings is cleverly integrated within the distinctive urban context. The physically pronounced differentiation between the generous base in the form of a city balcony and the meandering structures above fits pleasantly but nevertheless assertively in terms of its expression and effect – including in the choice of brick as a material – with the distinctive urban fabric. The high external design quality is consistently continued in spatial terms on the inside. Internal spaces with a high amenity value and well laid out apartments offer an optimum platform for the energy concepts provided by the building complex. When taking into consideration the architectural form and the construction effort required, the energy contribution provided by the wind turbines is not deemed to be appropriate.”
Building concept
For the concept for the Elbarkaden complex, respect for the historic urban context and the representative location on water provided the determining factors shaping the design: the building is designed to fit into its surroundings and form part of the new HafenCity Hamburg, whereby the three different uses (Greenpeace, Designxport, living) can already be differentiated from a distance. In terms of materials, the use of clinker brick combined with generously sized, dynamic glass membranes creates a homogenous appearance that at the same time is very distinctive. The building has been holistically conceived to incorporate renewable energies, grey energy, rainwater utilisation, heat recovery and compensatory areas for plants and animals.
The compact building structure shall be constructed as much as possible from prefabricated building components, achieving a passive house quality in both the residential and office areas. The available storage mass provided by the building structure will be utilised to improve the summer indoor environment by means of intensive night ventilation. The server rooms and special usage areas will be cooled with borehole heat exchange systems. When heat is required in the building, priority will be given to using exhaust heat to provide coverage. The ventilation with heat recovery enables the supply air to be precooled and preheated via the array of borehole heat exchangers.
Energy concept
The heat and electricity requirements are limited to an absolute minimum and are based on the low exergy approach. Instead of high tech, the focus is on passive measures such as solar yields, wind energy and optimally matched system components. For example, the heating and cooling requirements are minimised by using a high quality prefabricated building envelope without thermal bridges combined with storage masses and night-time cooling. It also intended to largely dispense with building cooling. Internal loads will be minimised by locating devices with considerable waste heat centrally in the specially designated server room.
In addition to connecting to environmentally friendly district heating, alternative solutions are being examined for individual areas that will provide even more favourable results (borehole heat exchangers, heat pump, biogas, CHP plant). In order to achieve a high electrical energy efficiency, solar power systems and wind turbines on the roof will largely balance out the building’s primary energy requirement across the year.
As a result of the optimised thermal situation, the thermal requirement profile has a strong winter peak. Energy independence for the heating and operating current will be reached on a monthly basis. This requires that a third more electricity is produced than is required across the year. This can be fed into the grid or used for electromobility.