Evolved Urbanity
More and more commercial operations and service providers are moving to Adlershof. The quarter is gradually turning into a city.
Engelmann’s confectionary and pastry shop in Berlin is not only famous for its luscious cakes and tarts, but also for its original owner: Pastry chef Michael Engelmann is a trained pantomime, a clown. Located on Walther-Huth-Straße since the autumn of 2016, Engelmann’s new shop has been equipped with modern production facilities and a café offering customers a direct glimpse into the shop’s own show bakery. A stroke of luck not only for the kids attending the adjoining daycare centre Melli-Beese-Haus, but also for strollers in the landscape park who are enjoying this new sweets stop.
On an area of almost 2,000 square metres, the new pastry shop is only one of numerous business projects further vitalising the location of Adlershof. Along with companies, institutes and colleges, an increasing number of service providers are settling here, offering a variety of goods ranging from culinary to health care.
And deliberately so: “When we’re talking about Adlershof as a city of science, we use the term ‘city’ deliberately,” explains Ute Hübener who is in charge of marketing state-owned areas on behalf of Adlershof Projekt GmbH. “We want a healthy mix of working, housing and quality of life to be thriving here.”
Which seems to be working. In any case, the dynamics have increased. Along Rudower Chaussee with its hotels, cafés and restaurants, the atmosphere is already distinctly urban. In addition to 16,800 employees, more and more people and families are moving to Adlershof to settle down permanently. What they appreciate: proximity of workplace, good traffic connection to the city, and the idyllic landscape park that once used to be Berlin’s first airfield for engine-powered flight. It’s hardly surprising that real estate prices are on the rise, catching up with their inner city counterparts.
Architects and engineers of kba GmbH are fully aware of this development. Having realised the “Charlotte am Campus” residence and the new building of the “Gesellschaft zur Förderung angewandter Informatik”, they now desire a new location for their office right in the centre of Adlershof. That’s why they are currently erecting a threestorey structure on Wagner-Régeny-Straße designed for their 50 employees to move in. Just around the corner on Pfarrer-Goosmann-Straße, physiotherapist and entrepreneur Jörg Tauchel has a new five-storey therapy centre built on a plot of a little less than 1,500 square metres. The building is intended to complement the rehab facility on Albert-Einstein-Straße which opened ten years ago, thus creating a drop-in centre for those in need of rehabilitation, preventive health and fitness training, or therapy.
At the same time, the influx of businesses from the “classical” sectors of science, technology and media continues: not far from Engelmann’s pastry shop, MSW Displays, a company specialised in display design, printed material and exhibition stand construction, are erecting a building containing a workshop and administrative section laid out for ten employees. On Groß-Berliner Damm, EBK Krüger, specialised manufacturers of electromechanical components, have secured themselves a plot of no less than 10,000 square metres for the construction of a new manufacturing facility designed for 50 employees.
Along with kba architects on Wagner-Régeny-Straße, further technology companies will go into operation in the near future: WINDnovation’s 25 engineers and experts are working on innovative rotor blades for wind power stations. Next door, Zesys centre for embedded systems are dedicating themselves to industrial hard- and software testing; their institute will move into a three-storey building with a floor area of roughly 1,000 square metres, containing office and lab rooms designed for 22 employees. Since all these enterprises rely on qualified staff, the establishment of personnel service provider VISSIO makes for an ideal complement.
Another addition to the neighbourhood is a former start-up: specialised in power and automation engineering, Enasys are currently constructing a building for production and administration on an area of 3,000 square metres, designed for 20 employees.
By Mirko Heinemann for Adlershof Special