TECHNICMUSEUM BERLIN, HONORABLE MENTION,2023
Location: Berlin, Germany
Type: Museum
Project period: 2023
Status: Competition
Area: 2280 m2 GFA
Phases: LP2
Client: BIM Berliner Immobilienmanagement GmbH
Architects: Kirchberger & Wiegner Rohde in Collaboration with Morris+Company London, Haptic Architects London and Hutchinson & Partners Berlin
Technology of the Future
Human activity is in crisis. We therefore propose that the new entrance
building of the German Museum of Technology in Berlin become a laboratory of
learning for the future.
At the heart of this laboratory is a forest.
Safeguarding the survival of the globally endangered forest ecosystem is what
we regard as the technology of the future. The German Museum of Technology
takes the lead by planting a forest laboratory in a prominent location in the
city of Berlin. Here, new climate-adapted tree species and their interactions
as (urban) ecosystems are studied and communicated to a broad public.
With the forest laboratory itself serving as the
foyer, and with various minimally invasive pavilions, roofs, and bridges
integrated within it, the museum gains the central circulation and connection
between its two existing parts that it requires. At the same time, a new,
visible presence in the urban fabric emerges – as a green city block and a
reinterpretation of the museum’s previous idea of technology.
To preserve space for the forest laboratory and
avoid constructing a conventional new building – with its corresponding
resource and energy demands – the other functions described in the competition
brief are integrated into the existing structures, including the ruin of the
former Ladestraße West.
The minimal architectural interventions consist
exclusively of recycled or reused materials. For the few new heated areas, a
consistent low-tech principle is applied: natural ventilation, use of return
heat from the existing district heating network, electricity from photovoltaic
panels, and greywater recycling.
Reinterpreting the central foyer as a public
green space offers a positive perspective on the challenges of the future. The
forest as a technology of the future places the essential question of
humanity’s future activity on the agenda of the German Museum of Technology.
The forest becomes the new face of the museum. The forest is a poetic space –
it brings joy, appeals to all the senses, and thus itself becomes the seedbed
for new societal ambitions.
RELATED PROJECTS
