04. Berlin TXL, The Urban Tech Republic

from Mohsen Khanmohamadi - Architecture Portfolio - Oct 2021

06. Darband Event Hall

Professional Project, Berlin, 2021 GMP Architekten

Cooporated in: Planning and 3D modeling of watchtower, maker space and confrence rooms.

Opening at 1948 and having its last flight at Nov 2020, Tegel is one of the most memorial places for all berliners. The whole airport is among national heritage now and should preserve. In August 2021 the grounds were handed over to Tegel Projekt GmbH, where they want to make the Urban Tech Republic Of Tegel. In the Urban Tech Republic as many as 1,000 large and small businesses with 20,000 employees will work in research, development, and production. And more than 2,500 students will move into the former terminal building along with the Tegel airport bird view

prestigious Berliner Hochschule für Technik University. In total around 5,000 students will populate the Berlin TXL campus. Berlin TXL will focus on what keeps the 21st century’s growing major cities alive: the efficient use of energy, sustainable construction, eco-friendly mobility, recycling, networked control of systems, clean water, and application of new materials.

Amphitheaters, conference rooms Watch Tower

Maker Space

Site plan, showing the position of tower, amphitheters, confrence rooms and maker space

Floor plan +26m

Interior image

Interior image Floor plan +30m

Floor plan +34m (terrace) Floor plan +42m

The watch tower of the airport has 1438 square meters of area in total where its mostly stairs and circulation to the upper floor and at the end there are 350m² of usefull floor area. After studying the plans, GMP offered several options for how to use this area, Office tower, Lounge tower, Suite tower, Event tower and gourmet tower were among them. For all the options a study about the requiremnts of the space has been done and then plans and 3D models were developed to check with the existing situation of the walls and ceilings. The idea is to keep the original outlook of the tower and so no window will become blind and that makes some limits into where the new interior wall could be located and about the proportion and area of the new rooms. Another challenge in changing the function of this tower is the fire escape regulations and provision of access for all users, where the space is so small and client wants to have the maximum usable space.

At the end it was super interesting to work on a watch tower of such a nostalgic and prestigues place and thinking about how this tower have a new life and how to plan it for the new usage! Office

Entrance area to the maker space (at right) and confrence rooms (at left).

Conference rooms and the maker space are located in front of each other, forming a big entrance area in front of them. from this entrance a corridor goes to the loop area behind these buildings (where the check ins and airplains used to be). To make a better quality entrance stairs were relocated. This provides a wider area, plus opens up the facade for the maker space and lets it have big glass windows. (above picture on the left).

Many different variations have been studied for the arrangement of seats and location of walls in the confrence rooms to provide the maximum number of the seats and make it financially logical for the client to make amphitheatres and confrence rooms there.

For the maker space and the corridor next to it different options for the use of space and the interior look were designed. keeping an eye on the old proportion and geometry of the building and trying to integrate the design principle into the new design. Among these principle is the triangular ceiling panels of the old airport which was translated into the new forms of suspended ceiling and lighting for different rooms in the new TXL project.

In total 2250m² of confrence rooms and 1200m² of maker space, workshops and offices next to them where design in this part of the old airport.