Heinemann, trading firm

The stately location in the immediate vicinity of Hamburg’s Speicherstadt quarter with its venerable warehouses and import/export facilities calls for a distinctive construction. On the one hand, the new structure ought to fit in with the existing urban fabric and standing historic buildings in terms of the choice of materials and the building’s shape. On the other, design-related specifications are to be incorporated so that they are interpreted in new ways and portray both the company and its objectives in a contemporary manner in the form of a new building. The same applies to an up-to-date use of energetics. The so-called curtain-wall façade with its prefabricated brick elements is arrayed in a style modelled on the brick architecture of the historic counting-houses (e.g. Sprinkenhof complex). The Heinemann logo is set inconspicuously where the stone rhombi intersect. The corporate values open-mindedness, transparency, interaction and communication become clearly visible in the building’s interior in the presence of the great flexibility provided by the three-winged structure – all the way to the expressive spatial experience on the supplementary storey at the very top.