Siemensstadt square

The master plan encompasses over one million square meters of gross floor area, which will include the development of 3,750 residential units. During the deconstruction of existing structures, such as the gatehouse on Rohrdamm, the project team is utilizing an "urban mining" approach. Instead of downcycling the brick rubble into road fill, workers are manually salvaging the historic extruded clinker bricks from the facades. Around 50,000 bricks have already been secured in the current construction phase.

These recovered bricks undergo rigorous material testing for compressive strength, water permeability, and frost resistance. Afterwards, they are repurposed as fully functional building components for planned new structures, such as the future atrium building at the entrance plaza. This circular economy approach preserves the embodied energy of the original materials and prevents the additional CO2 emissions that would result from manufacturing new ones. The manual recovery of these bricks also drastically reduces waste: during the dismantling of a single warehouse in the entrance area, the resulting volume of rubble dropped from several standard waste containers to barely half a container.

To meet future heating and cooling demands, a new thermal network has been under construction since October 2025. Utilizing a large-scale wastewater heat exchanger, air-source heat pumps, and green electricity, this system will provide climate-neutral heating and cooling for all buildings throughout the district.

Text: ZAB | Sources: Siemens AG, Berlin.de, Wienerberger, GETEC, Berliner Wasserbetriebe