Issue 1/2005
01/02/05
Introducing the Axel Springer Passage in Berlin
Four years of work and investments of 175 million euros were required to erect additions to the publishing company’s two existing high-rise buildings. The Axel Springer Passage, the Ullstein Hall event center and a new main entryway were constructed following plans drafted by London architects Renton, Howard, Wood, Levin Partnership (RHWL). The Axel Springer Passage was erected on the plot on the Kochstrasse which had formerly been occupied by the printing plant. Now available at the center of Berlin’s historical newspaper district are high-quality office facilities, a diversity of services for the modern urban dweller and a variety of restaurants.
Category: Issue 1/2005
Posted by: Editor
The Ullstein Hall forms the transition between the new, eight-story structure and the two high-rise buildings of 19 stories each. This is the new events forum for the publishing company, with capacity for up to one thousand persons. A new and impressive entryway was created at the same time, at Axel-Springer-Strasse 65. Thus the publishing house has turned its face toward the center of the city, setting an optical signal for the further merger of the eastern and western sections of Berlin, as has been promoted by the company as a part of the legacy of its founder, Axel Springer.
Executive Board Chairman Dr. Mathias Döpfner explained the corporate policies involved here: “With its investment in this new structure the Axel Springer AG has once again documented and reinforced its corporate involvement in the German capital. Axel Springer’s commitment to Berlin has been testified to again and again in the past 45 years.
New meeting point in downtown Berlin
The Axel Springer Passage is about 150 meters long, 85 meters wide and 29 meters tall at its highest point; it offers 66,000 square meters of floor space. The exterior is dominated by a modern glass façade while the interior is a contemporary interpretation of the architectural structures typical of Berlin, with one courtyard behind another. The four roofed interior courtyards form the functional and architectural heart of the Axel Springer Passage. Public access to the ground floor is through five entryways along the Kochstrasse, Markgrafenstrasse and Zimmerstrasse. There is also underground public parking with 485 spaces.
The Axel Springer Passage offers a total of 37,000 square meters of office space, about 60 per cent of which is being used by departments of the Axel Springer AG. On the first floor, with entry from the Markgrafenstrasse, there is a medical center with fifteen specialists in seven disciplines and a physiotherapy suite. A further important component among the features of the Passage are retailers and service providers on the ground floor, including a pharmacy, an optician, a tanning studio, a hairdresser, a medical supply store, an engraver, a tobacconist and ticket agency, and a bank.
Three eateries – the Paparazzi, Deli-News and Mittelbar – are both meeting points and new local attractions.
The arts and culture also have a place in the Axel Springer Passage. Since mid-December the “Kartoon” cabaret dishes up political and social satire for an audience of up to 180, six days a week. “Watching artists at work” is the idea behind making glassed-in studios on the ground floor available to internationally acknowledged artists for a certain period of time. The idea is to promote cultural exchange at all levels – both among the artists and with passers-by and guests in the Passage, who can experience artists as they work.
Events forum with modern technology and cultural highlights
The Ullstein Hall is the new Axel Springer AG events venue in Berlin, with space for up to one thousand visitors. Flooded with natural light, it serves as the link between the Axel Springer Passage and the two high-rise publishing buildings. The hall is equipped with professional stage technology, making possible all types of events, to include television productions.
Architecture
Worthy of particular attention in the impressive architecture crafted by the internationally renowned Renton, Howard, Wood, Levin Partnership (RHWL Architects), London, are the transparency and flexibility of the floor plan.
The building, which picks up on the traditional architecture of series of courtyards typical of Berlin and interprets this structure anew, provides many services for today’s city-dwellers with their chronic shortage of time. This makes for both efficient working and pleasant relaxation while dining. The carefully engineered ventilation system ensures an agreeable climate throughout the year.
The functional and architectural heart of this glass ensemble is the concept for eight interior courtyards, offset one against another. Four of these atria are covered by a glass dome above the first floor and are heated, as well, so that they can be used in winter. In addition, five interior courtyards are joined one with another so that visitors encounter a large, contiguous space where extensive plantings create a pleasant microclimate and a protected and relaxed atmosphere.
The roof also required special architectural inventiveness. Not that this was a problem in regard to the “green roof,” for which the Berlin landscape architect Birgit Hammer was responsible. More difficult was identifying a solution for cleaning and maintaining the vast exterior facades, the glassed-in offices superimposed upon the roof and the domed interior courtyards. Two mobile façade maintenance units were engineered to meet this need. Each of them can be extended telescopically by 15 meters and together they can reach every corner of the building.
Offices featuring largely natural ventilation, using innovative façade technologies, and the satisfaction of the publisher’s specification to be able to set up flexible use units at any time, are among the advantages of this building concept.
Publishing house founder Axel Springer laid the foundation stone for his publishing house in the middle of the Cold War, directly on what was then the intersector border. The high-rise structure, clad in bronze-colored aluminum panels (architects: Melchiorre Bega and Gini Franzi, Franz Heinrich Sobotka and Gustav Müller, 1959-66) became a landmark for the “golden West.”
The historical newspaper districts
The Axel Springer House is located at the center of Berlin’s historical newspaper district. All three of Berlin’s former major publishers – Scherl, Mosse and Ullstein – once were headquartered here. Particularly during the Weimar Republic many small and medium-size publishers also enlivened business in the area. A vigorous and varied publishing scene sprang up in and around Kochstrasse, which thus came to be known as the “Fleet Street of Berlin.” Beginning in 1933 the National Socialists either forced dissenting publishers to toe the party line or drove them out of business. Thus they destroyed the legendary, many-facetted heart of the newspaper district.
The Kochstrasse remained dormant until May 1959 when its renaissance began with Axel Springer laying the foundation stone for his building between the Lindenstrasse and Markgrafenstrasse. This happened at a moment in which the fate of Berlin, still divided, had become a central question in world politics. In November 1958, Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev had driven the West into a corner by issuing his ultimatum. The Kremlin chief sought to force the Allies to abandon West Berlin. Khrushchev set a six-month deadline for withdrawal.
This threat against Berlin’s free zones had its effect. Major companies removed their headquarters. Fears about the future spread. Two days before the expiry of the ultimatum, on May 25, 1959, Axel Springer, whose publishing and corporate roots were in Hamburg, laid the foundation stone for his publishing house in Berlin in the historical newspaper district.
On that occasion Axel Springer explained, “You ask why I am building in Berlin? My answer is simple: I believe in Germany and in a Germany in the middle of its capital city, Berlin. But not only do I believe in Germany, I want to see it achieved, as well. And that is why I am building in Berlin. The city is not only Germany’s political metropolis, it has always been always its intellectual center and the gathering point for our thinkers.
The ultimatum passed without consequences – but a bit more than two years later, on August 13, 1961, construction of the Wall was commenced. Some executives urged the publisher to abandon construction of the building. Continuing the work there seemed to be something like battling windmills. But Axel Springer was not to be deterred and kept on building. On October 6, 1966, this new structure at Kochstrasse 50, nineteen stories tall and Europe’s most modern publishing and printing complex, was dedicated with a huge celebration.
Expanding the printing operations and publishing building
The years from 1992 to 1994 were characterized by modernization and expansion, both in the printing operations and in the publishing building. On September 14, 1992, the foundation stone was laid for the nineteen-story addition to the building on Kochstrasse. Springer’s employees took occupancy of the structure in October of 1994.
The third phase in the expansion of the Axel Springer Publishing Company commenced in July 2002 with the demolition of the printing plant on Kochstrasse, which fell into disuse with the commissioning of the new printing plant in Spandau. With the relocation of the new main entryway to Axel-Springer-Strasse 65, dedication of the Axel Springer Passage and the Ullstein Hall on January 13, 2004, the Axel Springer AG continued its corporate traditions and at the same time set new directions for the future. The company’s central departments were relocated from Hamburg to Berlin. The Executive Committee’s decision was based on corporate policy considerations. Berlin, which since January of 1967 had been the legal headquarters for Axel Springer, now became the headquarters in fact.
Facility Management
Working together with the Reimann Engineering Office at Magdeburg, the Henning GmbH, Schwelm, developed certain components in the facility management system for the complex.
The topics of quality optimization and improvement are today in the foreground at many companies. Among the essential factors here are services associated with the real property. Additional useful applications are to be found in a building such as the Axel Springer Passage. In general, monitors and monitor clusters can play a role in building management. Capabilities range from simple displays of images and text to status display monitors in, for example, entryways and lobbies, elevators, offices, doctors’ offices and hospitals, training and conference rooms.
The following components developed by the Henning GmbH, are used in the new Munich media center: A server with additional video/TV input and DVD; control, configuration and input of information to be displayed at each panel PC is handled with the operating software. The panel PCs can display information (about events, for example), run presentations or display news broadcasts or the like drawn from other media. Sufficient for this purpose is an industrial PC with an LCD monitor in any of various sizes (8”, 12”, 15”) along with the power supply and Ethernet network link. The connection between the server and the panel PC is made with an Ethernet link; maintenance and updates for the components, software and presentations are carried out by way of Internet access.
Thanks to the combination of these components and any desired number of panel PCs, the following applications can be realized:
Lobby monitors (displaying information, conference and seminar topics, signposting for events, and TV/video in the waiting area)
Doctors’ office monitors (display of current news, medical information, entertainment and product information)
Elevator monitors (showing floors, travel direction, location, tenants and TV/video in the elevator approach areas and inside the car)
Advantages
- High-quality display system for text, images and TV/video feeds
- Installation using conventional Cat5 Ethernet cable
- Flexible utilization, in elevators, too, thanks to an economical cable infrastructure
- Universal applicability of the display system
- All components can easily be interchanged, thus reducing downtimes.
Elevator technology as a comprehensive facility management system
The LeitTechnikProgramm (LTP) control technology applications suite makes it possible to connect elevators and escalators made by any of a variety of manufacturers and to achieve realtime visualization in both individual and group depictions, showing the cab location, call status, remote entry of travel commands. The program can be used with any make of controls (all control makes and models can be modified for use). Connections to the controls can be set up by way of modem, Ehternet or serial interface. Visualization using modern tab-menu technology ensures a clear depiction of all operational states.
The comprehensive safety concept provides for administration at three user levels (factory service, in-house technical staff, custodian). Here each user can be assigned an individual password, authorizing access to a particular level.
In this system the LTP can be parameterized for the specific application (the custodian, for example, cannot make any changes but is informed of any malfunctions as they occur and can view the status of the individual lifts). The safety and security concept is rounded out with the use of a hardware dongle (the LTP will not operate without the dongle). Once a malfunction report is received (“active malfunction reporting”) at the LTP, text messages or e-mails can be sent directly to service personnel; the cellphone numbers and e-mail addresses are user-programmable. A malfunctions list (checklist) assigned to each elevator control unit makes it possible to determine in detail the way in which specific malfunction reports are to be forwarded (e.g. an emergency call from the car would be forwarded with text messaging and e-mail). Ten different numbers can be dialed using this feature and each can be individually activated or deactivated.
The extensive trouble-shooting feature can, for example, use call simulation from the control center to determine locally whether the elevator has actually stalled. The elevator custodian functions integrated into the system ensure full documentation in the form of a monthly custodian’s report. This feature has been certified with TÜV type examination. Further services are also available including, for instance, generating pulse protocols for the external units (recording function), blocking and clearing individual floors and starting outside programs (e.g. frequency inverter) directly from the LeitTechnik program. These features use the communications channels already on hand and include exhaustive statistics functions and specification of maintenance intervals.
ElevatorPilot control and configuration tool
This program offers a convenient way to enter information on tenants; the number of entry fields and assignment to the particular floors are based on the selections previously made in the configuration menu and group configuration routine. The data (tenant identification) entered for each floor are automatically stored when the program is closed. The data just entered are then forwarded to the configuration screen at the panel PC by clicking the “Transfer data” button. (Configuration menu/group actions).
Entering special images
It is also possible to display images or objects. The special image which was previously entered will not be stored automatically when the control and configuration program is closed. If the image is to be saved, then the user must select “File” and then “Save as” from the main menu bar. A complete data record will be stored here, i.e. the special image is shown in all panel PCs.
Once again, the newly entered data are transferred to the panel PC configuration menu by clicking on the “Transfer data” button. (Configuration menu/group actions). The “special image” button will have to be clicked (configuration menu/group display).
Status displays
The panel PCs installed at the elevator approach areas and inside the car show tenant data or special images previously transferred using the ElevatorPilot along with the car’s current location and travel direction.
Lödige supplies elevator technology for the new Axel Springer Passage in Berlin
In a complex such as this one will find considerable volumes of both human and materials traffic. The demands made on the building’s internal logistics are thus quite high, in the interest of ensuring smooth flows of both people and materials. Lödige Aufzugstechnik GmbH of Paderborn has both the expertise and the experience needed to solve such complex tasks.
In March 2001 Lödige Aufzugstechnik GmbH was awarded the contract for the conveyance technology, to include the central facility management system designed to control and monitor all the systems installed in the Axel Springer Passage. A full maintenance contract was also concluded. Since high-quality components were used consistently in all the equipment, the maintenance costs are considerably lower than for comparable projects.
In the course of just two and a half years Lödige, beginning with the erection of the construction lifts in December 2001, installed a total of sixteen passenger elevators, four freight elevators, two hydraulic lift platforms and six escalators.
Passenger elevators
Seventeen passenger elevators are available to visitors and those who work in the Axel Springer Passage. Sixteen traction elevators, arranged in groups of two, provide access to between seven and nine stories each. They are augmented with a panorama lift serving the ground floor and first floor (hydraulic elevator), providing a 630 kg payload. This lift was planned in particular for transporting handicapped persons.
The individual elevators in each group of two are engineered to carry a maximum of eighteen passengers (1,400 kg payload). Travel speeds lie between 1.6 and 2.0 m/s. The elevators are equipped with gearless machinery.
The elevators’ high ride quality is also expressed in very uniform, barely discernible acceleration and deceleration during travel. This is thanks to a frequency inverter with four-quadrant regulation. When stopping at the individual floors, the cars achieve alignment with the landing at a tolerance of just ± 3 mm.
Each pair of elevators is served by a two-button collective group call control system. It coordinates call assignments in each group. The system is user-programmable at the central facility management control center. Preferential travel could, for example, be assigned to the executive lifts, special trips could be programmed for events, or individual floors could be blocked or cleared for access. The passenger is informed of such programming by way of the monitors located in the cars and, in addition, outside the hoistway on the ground floor.
Basic programming is such that an intermediate stop will be made only if the call is for the direction of travel already in progress. If any given lift has reached 75 per cent of maximum capacity, then it does not accept any further calls and first takes care of passengers already in the car. This ensures that each passenger will reach the desired destination as quickly as possible. Stops would be unnecessary since it is not to be expected that additional passengers would enter the car.
Equipment for the cars
The elevators are equipped with four-panel, center-parting telescoping doors made of polished stainless steel. The feeling of luxury thus imparted is continued in the cars’ interiors. The side walls are also made of polished stainless steel, relieved by horizontal, superimposed panels. The rear walls vary in each pair of lifts. One elevator in each group is equipped with a mirror covering the entire rear wall while the other is fitted with a pane of laminated safety glass. This pane opens up the view into the building and, through the glazed surface areas, to the outdoors. This is further evidence of the consistent implementation of the “transparency” concept throughout the building‘s architecture. The handrail, made of cylindrical stainless steel tubing, extends along all three sides of the car. The same is true for the impact protection comprising two stainless steel tubes located in parallel just above the car floor.
The ceiling is also made of stainless steel panels with integrated halogen spotlights. The stone floor covering used in the corridors is also used in the cars.
Each elevator is equipped with a high-quality call panel into which a 15-inch monitor is integrated. They provide passengers with detailed information on their current location, specific programming for the elevator and which offices, medical practices or businesses will be found on each floor.
Escalators
Six escalators make for easy movement of large amounts of foot traffic between the ground floor and the floor just above. The vertical rise for these units is 4.5 m at an angle of 35°. Operating speed of 30 m/min and steps slightly more than 1 m in width allow theoretical conveyance capacity of 9,000 people an hour. The units are engineered for continuous-duty service.
From a design viewpoint the escalators fit ideally into the open and transparent architecture of the building. The balustrade is made of transparent safety glass. An extremely narrow handrail is used to accentuate the “open” and “airy” overall impression created by the glass balustrade. The large majority of the visible sheet metal elements are made of brushed stainless steel and Teflon-coated stainless steel was used at the truss cladding while the steps themselves are of die-cast aluminum.
Freight lifts
Four hydraulic freight elevators are installed in the building, each with 1,800 kg of payload. Two hydraulic lift platforms raise loads of up to 3,000 kg from the basement to the ground floor.
An innovative solution was devised for delivering supplies to and removing wastes from the building complex. Located in the basement is a services gallery and it is used to deliver materials to and remove wastes from the entire building complex. Instead of providing access by way of a conventional truck ramp, a space-saving and cost-effective alternate was sought. Access for suppliers and disposal companies is by way of two lorry lifts. These are in fact two lift platforms which use scissors technology and – what makes them special – they are certified as passenger elevators. This means that they can carry people, too. These platforms are fitted with cars made of stainless steel and can carry loads of up to 30 metric tons. Trucks of up to 4 m in height and 12 m in length can enter and exit the services gallery without difficulty.
This solution, when compared with the conventional access ramp, saves space, requires only a shallow pit and slashes investment costs. Moreover, maintenance costs are lower when compared with other means of conveyance since less wear is to be expected. In the past Lödige installed similar systems for Volkswagen, the Dresden opera house and at the theater in Nürnberg.
Lödige Aufzugstechnik was able to turn all the conveyance equipment over to the owners on schedule at the beginning of 2004. Throughout the course of the project Lödige was not only able to meet the specified deadlines but usually was ahead of schedule. This achievement was acknowledged, emphasized and praised by the planners, Messrs. Ridder and Mayn, at the dedication ceremonies for the Axel Springer Passage.
1/2005
