That’s entertainment

Mercedes Platz

Berlin, Germany

Mercedes Platz is a major mixed use cultural and entertainment complex for central Berlin, and forms the heart of the city’s new district on Mühlenstrasse.

The development features four indoor performance venues with outside spaces, two hotels, multi-screen cinema facilities, an indoor bowling centre, high quality restaurants and catering outlets, new office buildings and basement parking. Buro Happold’s brief was to develop a sustainable, efficient and integrated world-class design for the project.

Challenge

A key requirement from the client was to ensure that the various buildings within the scheme worked in harmony with the proposed site, and allow for current and future flexibility for change in use and function.

The challenge for the Buro Happold team was to incorporate the various entertainment venues within an integrated building envelope, with each venue having various structural, acoustics, comfort and energy demands. The forms of the various spaces varied considerably and required separate engineering strategies to be developed.

The design team’s unified architectural and engineering solution has allowed the structural form to be maximised for efficiency while integrating the mechanical and electrical systems within the highly serviced spaces.

_{Alexander Schmidt-Narischkin, Associate Director}

Solution

The various patterns of occupancy and use within the facility has enabled a central energy point to be created, maximising the diversity in the heating, cooling and power demands across the site.

The efficiency of the structural forms and the on-site energy solutions has been a key part of our team’s sustainable design approach. The buildings are designed to complement the other sustainable design features, including mixed mode ventilation, high performance facades, well insulated building envelopes, green material selection and a central energy management system. The project aimed to achieve excellence through the integrated engineering approach.

Value

With aspirations of becoming Berlin’s leading entertainment centre, Mercedes Platz provides outstanding facilities for the city’s community and the tourists that visit each year.