<Office and Residential Buildings Friedrichstrasse Quartier 110, Berlin, 1996–2004, Competition 1st prize

Friedrichstrasse has been spectacularly renovated in recent years. In the immediate vicinity of the Friedrichstadt office building, new building complexes have been constructed on the footprint of entire street blocks. Their architectural expression is very different, but their structure is characterized by the uniform idea of building over the block as a whole and forming the courtyard area as a covered inner courtyard. The street blocks have become buildings. Public space is created in the form of enclosed interior spaces, passages that are primarily used as "shopping malls".

The concept for the renovation of the Friedrichstadt Quartier 110 office building deliberately followed other rules and created a sequence of five courtyards with different expressions, which create an open and exciting relationship between the street and the courtyard. The first three courtyards were opened up by passageways and directly connected to Friedrichstrasse and Mohrenstrasse. This distinguishes the complex decisively from the neighboring blocks, where the interior spaces have remained introverted and unrelated to the urban space of the street. In contrast, the new courtyards have become memorable "public spaces", passages in the direct sense, which are also used by residents and employees as inner-city oases.

When the buildings were reused as commercial, office and residential buildings, the existing monument's various layers were revealed, placed in relation to each other and condensed into a new, coherent structure. The parts of the former DIA building (1955) on Friedrich/Tauben/Mohrenstrasse, which are listed as individual monuments, and the listed buildings (1931) along Mohrenstrasse were preserved and renovated as a whole. Three new, contemporary building wings with a glass façade have been inserted on the courtyard side, creating a lively and sculptural overall picture for each courtyard space.