Röma16

As the first ‘building block’ in the future development of the Rödingsmarkt quarter in downtown Hamburg, a decisive role is in store for the new building at the address Rödingsmarkt 16. It must evolve the strength to tangibly transport the vision of a central quarter near the waterfront. And in its capacity as an identity-creating individual structure, in the future it will first of all have to harmoniously dovetail into the master plan and fit in with its variegated neighbours. This simultaneousness of seemingly complementary attributes is set forth in the building’s orientation/alignment, as well as in the necessary responses and demands awaiting it. While enclosing the space facing the street, justice is done to the specially situated waterfront vantage and to the immediate neighbourhood with its planned residential housing.

Taking this special situation into account with respect to the site and function, a structure arose whose compact, reposing cubature fulfils the urban spatial requirements. Compact with regard to the limitations on it, to its potential neighbours to the north and south, and to the office areas inside it, the structure radiates the necessary calm in what is presently an extraordinarily heterogeneous quarter. At the same time, openings and passageways in various sizes on its different sides allow the structure to react without seeming to be ‘jazzed up’. With its spacious glass hall along with the glimpses and vistas of water the building becomes the gateway to the adjoining canal. Penetration of the structural volume turns it into an urbane visual axis; neither a front or back come about. The two-storey, transparent lobby going from the Rödingsmarkt streetfront to the water expands through the addition of a central air space. In the same vein, the office building is spatially concluded by a two-storey bridge on the 6th and 7th floors. The changeover from streetside to waterside, from narrowness to expanse, becomes an experienceable spatial event.