REMISE IMMANUELKIRCHSTRASSE

Remise, BERLIN, 2020
with RALF WILKENING
The site for a start-up Remise (a tenement-block outhouse, historically a workshop-cum-carriage house) at Immanuelkirchstraße is situated in the Prenzlauer Berg district. It in turn rests, geologically, entirely on the ground moraines of the Barnim Plateau. Eighty per cent of the existing building was erected over a hundred years ago (ca. 1890–1905). The structure was always the same: a front building, a back building and then a Remise, the outhouse. The occupancy mix was vibrant. While the front and back buildings were used for living, artisans plied their trades in the Remise: carpenters, saddlers, locksmiths, printers, bakers. Many of the necessities for life were manufactured on-the-spot. Although the apartments remain, the trades have long disappeared, replaced by graphic designers, programmers, planners and others. The idea of a multi-use urban environment has finally reappeared again. Some people would say, “Great idea! But the thing with the Barnim Plateau ground moraines is really irrelevant.” Not so. Without it the basement level would be constantly flooded with water. Knowledge gleaned from the past almost always helps.
Project team
Lukas Beer
Alisa Joseph
Pedro Hamon
Hannah Knittel
Luisa Schäfer
Annett Schneider
Christoph Seibt
Aaron Schedler
Jean-Baptiste Bernard
Matic Cerin
Photography: Simon Menges

The Remise is built over the footprint of a previous Remise from the Wilhelminian era that had stood there until the 1990s.




The pre-fabricated wooden ceiling beams are inserted into notches in the concrete walls and fitted with a contraction plate.


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