2024
By participating in the ‘Sustainability Trust Network’, we are strengthening our commitment to sustainable architecture and urban planning, focussing on future-proof solutions for existing buildings, including EU taxonomy compliance, refurbishment planning, life cycle assessment and DGNB certification.
We won the Maintal-Mitte realisation competition - with an innovative residential district concept for 700 residential units that impressed the jury with its diverse building typology, networking of green spaces and flexible implementation.
The ground-breaking ceremony for the ‘Am Drachenberg’ neighbourhood in Eschollbrücken took place in March, where 55 sustainable homes with an innovative energy concept are being built, including photovoltaic systems and preparations for e-mobility.
Herbert Elfers presented our ‘View180’ project at the Hessian Fire Protection Day 2024 as a best-practice example of the conversion of an office tower from the 1990s into a modern residential and commercial building.
Robert Müller took part in the 3rd meeting of the working groups of the ‘Serial, modular & systemic construction’ round table in Berlin, where the focus was on topics such as increasing demand, removing market barriers and digitalising planning and production processes.
Jörg Krämer was re-elected to the Representative Assembly of the Chamber of Architects and Town Planners of Hesse with the fifth-best result, with the BDA Hesse increasing its share to 40 per cent of the seats.
In April, the symbolic ground-breaking ceremony took place for a sustainable logistics centre in Ketsch, which is to be completed by the end of the year with DGNB Platinum certification and an investment volume of 50 million euros.
Also in April, we went on an architectural walk through Bad Homburg, which took us from the old town via the castle with the White Tower to the Church of the Redeemer and ended with a cosy barbecue evening with Martin and his family.
At the opening of the DMK Award for Sustainable Building, Asmir Arifovic-Topal presented the Studico student residence, which made an exemplary contribution to living space and a learning environment by sustainably converting an administrative building from the 1950s.
Eight runners from planquadrat took part in the Merck company run, where they were cheered on by colleagues in sunny weather and pleasant temperatures.
At the beginning of June, we rang in the end of the working day across all sites: The Darmstadt team had a barbecue on the office terrace, the Frankfurt colleagues met up at a wine bar in Bockenheim and the Berlin team spent the evening at the Schleusenkrug in Charlottenburg.
In June, the MODULBAU KONGRESS 2024 also took place in Berlin, where Claudia Becker gave a workshop report on the topic of ‘Modular construction between urban development and housing’.
At the beginning of July, we organised the Futurepanel ‘Climate-resilient neighbourhoods’ in Darmstadt, where our guest speaker Christof Geskes from geskes.hack Landschaftsarchitekten presented innovative solutions for climate adaptation in urban spaces.
Jörg Krämer presented the topic of ‘Change as a principle’ at a young talent evening organised by the Chamber of Architects and Urban Planners in Hesse at the end of August, where he presented the Heraeus campus concept in Hanau and the ‘View 180’ project in Frankfurt.
At the Darmstadt 10 Friends Triathlon in September, our office team achieved an impressive total time of 14 hours, 24 minutes and 46 seconds despite sweltering temperatures of 33 °C, finishing 126th overall.
This year's summer tour took us to the Upper Middle Rhine Valley, where we hiked from Kaub through steep vineyards before ending the day in Martin Geskes' garden with a barbecue buffet, quiz and bouncy ball competition.
Robert Müller and Anne Schultheis gave a presentation on sustainable construction at the 20th Test Facility Forum in Frankenthal.
In September, we celebrated the topping-out ceremony for the second STADTPLATZ construction phase of the PARKTRIO residential project in Frankfurt.
Herbert Elfers presented our concept for a temporary Olympic stadium to the sports committee of the NRW state parliament, which is to be transformed into a park with lakes, residential and office space as well as daycare centres and sports facilities after the Games.
At the beginning of October, we celebrated the topping-out ceremony for the ‘Plinganserstrasse’ new-build and modernisation project in Munich, which is scheduled for completion at the end of 2026.
At the end of October, Herbert Elfers gave a guided tour of the View180 conversion project in Frankfurt-Sachsenhausen, in which a former office building from 1991 is being transformed into a high-quality mixed-use building.
In November, our Darmstadt office hosted a conference organised by the German Academy for Urban and Regional Planning on sustainable urban development, which began with an excursion through Mollerstadt and to the Studico project and continued with informative presentations.