Germany’s tallest building in slim-floor design
The striking Edge ElbSide office building under construction at the eastern entrance to Hamburg’s HafenCity is a new landmark for the Hanseatic City. The 18-story building with a total rental space of around 24,000 m² provides room for approx. 1,700workplaces. The main tenant will be power company Vattenfall, which will occupy around 80% of the space.
Across from the entrance plaza inside the building, an inviting flight of stairs leads up to the mezzanine. From there, an open staircase in the main “thoroughfare” of the building – the “marketplace” intended to promote communication – provides a vertical connection across six floors. The building features green conservatories that constitute intermediate climate zones. They are distributed across the building, accessible from several floors, and can be used throughout the year. As part of the climate concept, they create buffer zones in which fresh air is pre-heated, and facilitate controlled, natural cross ventilation of the building. In addition, they significantly reduce energy consumption. The two-story atriums in the tower section give the workplaces additional spaciousness and promote communication between the different floors.
Edge ElbSide – new landmark for Hamburg
Edge ElbSide will be Germany’s tallest office building in slim-floor design. The slender structural system of prestressed Brespa floor slabs and Peikko DeltaBeam composite beams is currently one of the most innovative and most ecological concrete floor slab systems. It saves over 50% of raw materials in concrete production and significantly reduces CO2 emissions compared to conventional cast-in-situ concrete floor slabs. This type of frame construction additionally permits construction to progress at above-average speed, which is further accelerated by the prefabricated timber façades.
The technological strategy applied in the Edge ElbSide project aims to achieve highest sustainability and is based on the Edge Next platform. The new type of plug-and-play multisensors installed in the building simultaneously measure air quality, lighting conditions, temperature and space usage. This data is then continuously analyzed in the cloud and automatically adjusted in order to maximize energy efficiency. A building app connected to the system permits employees to individually control features such as light intensity and temperature.
HafenCity platinum Ecolabel
Edge ElbSide is seeking to obtain both the HafenCity platinum Ecolabel and the Well Gold Core & Shell certificate of the International Well Building Institute (IWBI). The latter certificate assesses the general level of innovation of buildings and measures that explicitly promote the health and wellbeing of its users.
Stuttgart-based Behnisch Architekten won the architectural competition for the newEdge ElbSide ahead of Hamburg-based architectural firm blauraum. Engineering office Assmann Beraten + Planen GmbH was commissioned with the structural verifications, and Zech Group SE will be the general contractor building the new landmark between 2021 and 2023.
