Breaking News: Mad Arkitekter Announces Plans to Build Germany's Tallest Wooden House - A Game-Changer in Sustainable Architecture!

Mad Arkitekter, the Norwegian architecture firm, has won a two-stage competition to design Germany's tallest wooden house, a 29-story building in Berlin's Kreuzberg neighbourhood. The project was highly competitive, with 14 well-known European architects submitting proposals for the building, which will serve as a signal tower in the centre of the district. The mixed-use building will include residential collectives, apartments for rent and social housing, student housing, freehold homes, a kindergarten, a cultural school, a bakery, a workshop, an industry, and various publicly available venues inside and outside the building.

The jury, consisting of representatives from the state of Berlin, the Kreuzberg district, renowned professionals, and the builder UTB, were highly impressed by Mad Arkitekter's design, which solves the requirements of the special Woho Berlin program and fits into the urban context. The differentiated building volumes, which consist of four individual volumes, are inspired by the typical quarter structure in Kreuzberg and are consistently further developed and refined in how the program is resolved inside, the jury said.

"We are excited to be part of such a groundbreaking project in Berlin," said Nicolai Riise, CEO of Mad AS. "This is a big and international breakthrough for Mad. Being allowed to help develop a project here is fantastic." The house with the strange in – a whole small district in the hill Kreuzberg is diverse and unconventional, and Mad has wanted to mirror that in the competition proposal. The concept is an interpretation of a typical Kreuzberg quarter, in a vertical format.

The focus of Mad Arkitekter's urban projects is to create good and sustainable city life while providing space for a good everyday life for users and residents. In this project, they have proposed a utility building where the residents, users, and neighbours are the focus. It was important to create something recognizable to people, despite the unfamiliar heights and volume in this area, explains Jonny Klokk, architect and responsible partner of Mad Arkitekter.

The building's wooden structure is State-of-the-art in the field of social and climate sustainability, Klokk said. Together with its partners, including the Norwegian Degree of Freedom and Wild Energy, German Wenzel + Wenzel and Brand + Mad architects, Mad Arkitekter delivered a piece of Norwegian architecture and engineering. "We are very much looking forward to further developing this project together with developer UTB in Berlin, the authorities, the city, and the neighbourhood," concludes Klokk.

The competition proposals had to solve many aspects, including programming of "mixed city" and "Kreuzberg-Mischung," location development and urban affiliation, wooden structures, distance effects, and feasibility. "I was very impressed by the engaged, even passionate, discussion about the different drafts," said Thomas Bestgen, managing partner of UTB Projektmanagement GmbH and a member of the jury. "We now have a good solution that reflects our attitude to social mixing and focus on the best interests and sustainability of the community."

Overall, Mad Arkitekter's proposal for Germany's tallest wooden house represents a significant milestone in sustainable architecture and urban design. The building's unique design, mixed-use programming, and wooden structure serve as an innovative model for future urban development projects worldwide.

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Press Release. Courtesy of Mad architects