Interwoven | Nominated - Lars-Lerup Award 2024

With the global shift towards urbanization, cities are becoming increasingly dense, making the reuse of existing structures a key strategy in sustainable urban development. This project zeroes in on an often-overlooked architectural typology: underutilized „leftover“ spaces, such as parking garages. While these sites can present challenging layouts, they also offer exciting opportunities for creative transformation. This project focuses on the radical repurposing of a parking garage in Berlin's Wedding district, converting it into student housing. The primary challenge is transforming a structure originally designed for cars into functional and appealing living spaces. These parking garages are emblematic of rational, modern construction methods based on standardized vehicle dimensions. The prefabricated components reflect an industrialized building process, resulting in repetitive, easily replicable spaces. The efficiency and modularity inherent in such structures are common themes in many modern buildings, characterized by serial arrangements, stacking, grids, and orthogonal connections

Existing Site

Site Analysis

The project site occupies a unique position between a residential neighborhood and the Berliner Hochschule für Technik (BHT) university campus. This strategic location offers the potential to bridge these two distinct urban fabrics. The design aims to seamlessly integrate these contrasting environments, creating an innovative typology for student housing. The open space is transformed into a community hub, featuring a café and playground to attract local residents and integrate student housing into the neighborhood.

Converting the existing structure, originally built to serve as a car park, posed significant challenges. Two major issues were the building's depth (32m x 130m) and the unusually low floor-to-ceiling height (2.1m).

Transformation

To address these challenges, portions of the building were removed—an approach facilitated by the prefabricated nature of the structure, allowing these elements to be repurposed elsewhere. Reducing the building's depth not only mitigates these issues but also allows for more natural light and greenery to permeate the space.

To maintain affordability for the intended user group, the design proposes four-person co-living units, each configured as a duplex apartment. After analyzing the activity patterns of the target demographic, each unit was designed with a double-height common space, serving as a living area, kitchen-dining area, and study/studio space. The private areas are single-height, maximizing the efficient use of space. Metal extensions provide open terraces and shading for the apartments. The interconnected roofs create a continuous roofscape, offering communal spaces for gathering, leisure, and even rooftop gardens. Most of the ground level is dedicated to rental spaces and community activities, which not only foster neighborhood integration but also generate financial support for the building's operations.

The design explores the potential of adapting car-centric relics to support urban densification through sustainable community-driven solutions.