Maybachufer 36 residential project, Berlin Neukölln

The Maybachufer 36 project is a building complex comprising four buildings, situated right next to Berlin’s Landwehr Canal, with a gross floor area of around 11,000 m², accommodating a supermarket, a day care centre and 71 residential units in different sizes and configurations.

The client is Turkish jeans manufacturer Cross Jeanswear, which expanded its business to the rest of the European market in the early 1990s. Berlin was selected as a central location in this expansion strategy and an old glassworks was purchased for use as warehouse and office space and as a factory outlet.

As the space available no longer meets its requirements, Cross Jeanswear relocated its warehouse and offices and decided to construct a residential complex with a supermarket and day care centre on the site of the old glassworks.

The renowned architectural firm Patzschke und Partner did the planning; it had previously received international acclaim for the renovation of the Berlin Grand Hotel Adlon. PORR was brought on board as the main contractor. PORR completed the project in March 2019, after less than two years of construction work.

The building complex includes a basement level with a garage, technical and storage rooms, a ground floor and five or six higher storeys depending on the building.

The high groundwater conditions on the site made dewatering necessary. Groundwater reduction measures were planned and executed using a soldier pile wall for shoring. A trench embankment on neighbouring land was possible on one site boundary. The entire basement level was constructed in waterproof reinforced concrete. The ceilings over the ground floor in the areas not built on and the passageways were also planned and implemented with waterproof concrete.

The load-bearing vertical components were designed in reinforced concrete and brickwork; the ceilings are also made of reinforced concrete. The roofs were constructed as warm roofs with bituminous sealing. The roofs of the internal courtyard and all other roofs outside of the roof terraces have a green roof.

PORR handed over the day care centre to the client as an extended shell for the work to be completed by the operator. All other areas were handed over by PORR on a turnkey basis.

The confined inner-city location of the construction area with a directly adjacent building and a car park required a high level of care, consideration and precision from the experts at PORR. For example, during the excavation work, the soldier pile wall was installed directly on the car park boundary. The team had to ensure that use of the rest of the car park was not obstructed during the work. 

Thanks to a strong project team that worked passionately to implement our PORR principles in collaboration with the subcontractors and all involved in the planning process, the project was handed over to a happy client in March 2019.