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Spreefeld

Three buildings, one courtyard, a riverbank kept public.

SpreefeldFridolin freudenfett · CC BY-SA 4.0

City

Berlin

Year

2014

Height

7 stories × 3

Homes

~60

Residents

~140

Architects

Carpaneto · FAT KOEHL · BAR

Tenure

Co-op / Baugruppe

Energy

Passive house

On a stretch of Spree riverbank that speculation should have taken, a cooperative built three 7-story passive-house buildings — Carpaneto, FAT KOEHL, and BAR Architekten, one each — arranged to hold a shared courtyard open to the water. About 60 homes and 140 residents, including cluster apartments of 600–800 m² where a dozen people share kitchens and living rooms at a scale between flat and floor.

The radical move is the ground plane: no housing on it. Kindergarten, workshops, and deliberately unprogrammed "option rooms" face the courtyard and the river path, which stays open to everyone. Roof terraces connect across bridges. There was no speculative developer anywhere in the chain — the residents were the client, and the riverbank shows it.

HOUSE 1 · CARPANETO HOUSE 2 · FAT KOEHL HOUSE 3 · BAR SHARED COURT, OPEN TO THE RIVER THE SPREE — BANK PATH STAYS PUBLIC GROUND FLOOR: NO HOUSING
Fig. 06 — Spreefeld site logic: buildings hold the court; the court holds the river. Illustrative.
The shared lane between the houses — planting, cargo bikes, option roomsFridolin freudenfett · CC BY-SA 4.0
The shared lane between the houses — planting, cargo bikes, option rooms
The bank path — kept public, not privatizedFridolin freudenfett · CC BY-SA 4.0
The bank path — kept public, not privatized
Cluster apartment interior — photo needed
A cluster apartment: 600–800 m² shared among many households
Seven stories over the gravel path between the housesFridolin freudenfett · CC BY-SA 4.0
Seven stories over the gravel path between the houses

Lessons for Berkeley

  • Two or three buildings can make one courtyard — a Berkeley group doesn't need a full-block parcel to get the Hof.
  • Keeping the ground floor housing-free is what makes the block a neighbor instead of a compound.
  • "Option rooms" — cheap, unfinished, rentable — are how a building stays useful for decades it can't predict.
  • Cluster apartments house people the market ignores: singles, elders, groups — at rents whole units can't reach.
  • Passive-house at 7 stories, by a Baugruppe, in 2014: the performance excuse is gone.

Sources: Bau- und Wohngenossenschaft Spreefeld publications and the architects' project pages. Figures (~60 homes, ~140 residents) are approximate.

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