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Berlin-Kreuzberg in 2026. On Schöneberger Strasse, very close to Potsdamer Platz, the first residents have moved into a new high-rise.
Social welfare recipients live here right next to top managers who could easily pay one million euros for their apartment, and next to members of the middle class who rent them.
The neighbors from the neighborhood meet in the swimming pool on the ground floor or for lunch in the canteen.
For the children from the neighborhood there is not only a daycare center, but also a youth club and a bicycle workshop.
That sounds like kitschy social romance.
But if it goes according to the plans of Thomas Bestgen, this mixture will actually become reality in the high-rise building called “WoHo” (the abbreviation stands for residential high-rise).
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"Our goal at WoHo is to represent the quality of a mixed quarter vertically," says the managing partner of UTB Projektmanagement GmbH, who has been involved with the project for six years.
He speaks of “social mix, orientation towards the common good and sustainability”, which is reflected in the project.
In the case of the mostly pure office or hotel towers, which - particularly striking in Frankfurt am Main - shape the skyline of German metropolises, there can be no question of a mix.
But this term also does not apply to the high-rise apartment buildings that were built in large housing estates on the outskirts of the city in the 1960s and 1970s.
They were usually created in the context of social housing and mostly developed into social hot spots that had to struggle with neglect and vandalism.
Now, however, there are some objects in the planning stage that could turn out differently.
As with WoHo in Berlin, the planners pay attention to a mix and an open access to the environment.
Access via external stairs
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In the recent past, however, luxury towers for a wealthy target group have emerged in many major German cities, who often only use their apartment as a second or third home.
"Buildings are for wealthy one-person households and couples - preferably in central inner-city locations, followed by high-class residential locations," the real estate company Catella stated in an analysis in 2018.
Conversions of previous office towers are also included, which are becoming exclusive residential addresses.
As a rule, the common man has to stay outside.
This is exactly what is supposed to be different with the high-rise project in Berlin-Kreuzberg.
This is because public and semi-public areas are planned, which are housed in the seven-storey base.
Non-residents should also have access via an external staircase.
According to the client's ideas, there should be space for cafes, a bakery and other commercial space, as well as studios, music studios and youth facilities on the lower floors.
The top floor of the 98-meter-high tower should also be open to the public - a bar and a sauna, for example, are conceivable here.
It will be a vertical mini-city.
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Berlin's Senate Building Director Regula Lüscher praised the high-rise complex designed by the Norwegian architecture firm Mad arkitekter "a lively ground floor zone" and integrated itself "in a particularly successful way into the public spaces in the neighborhood" when she announced the result of the architectural design competition a few weeks ago.
There is a new high-rise model in Berlin: residential towers must therefore also include commercially used areas, while conversely a tower that is primarily planned for offices must also offer space for apartments.
In addition, the top floor should be accessible to the public or at least be used jointly.
The authorities in all cities do not have such detailed specifications as in Berlin.
But even there, more and more planners are saying goodbye to monofunctional high-rise complexes isolated from public space.
For example, the 140-meter-high One Forty West was built in Frankfurt am Main and comprises a four-star hotel and 187 apartments.
Public use on the ground floor
The real estate company CA Immo opted for a combination of hotel and offices for the 190-meter-high skyscraper called One, which is also growing in the banking metropolis.
With a new project in Frankfurt, CA Immo is taking this approach even further.
The jury is expected to announce its decision in the architecture competition for the Millennium Areal, which is located on the edge of the Europaviertel and the trade fair, at the end of April.
The main features of the planning have already been determined: The building ensemble with two high-rise buildings and a perimeter block development is to be created, which will have a total of 185,000 square meters of floor space.
In addition to around 500 apartments, office space, a hotel, a daycare center as well as restaurants, shops, service providers and leisure activities are also planned.
Two things are similar to the WoHo in Berlin: There will also be offers for different income groups on the Millennium Areal, as 200 of the 500 apartments will be publicly funded and therefore affordable even for tenants on a tight budget.
And thanks to the different uses on the lower floors and a public viewing platform with a café, the complex will open up to the general public.
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“The aim is to revitalize the ground floors and thus achieve urban quality,” explains Markus Diekow from CA Immo Germany.
Of course, the developers are not doing it completely unselfishly.
The industry has recognized that it ultimately makes sense from an economic point of view not to put everything on one card, but to compensate for possible economic fluctuations through different uses.
The example of Roots shows that even unconventional elements can play a role.
This is an 18-storey wooden high-rise that Garbe Immobilien-Projekte is planning in Hamburg's HafenCity.
181 owner-occupied and publicly subsidized rental apartments are planned.
There are also 4,000 square meters of exhibition, office and restaurant space.
"Bring attitude"
“Eating and drinking bring people together,” says UTB boss Thomas Bestgen.
This is particularly important because very different people will live in the Berlin WoHo.
One third of the 150 or so apartments are publicly funded, which currently means a rent of 6.50 euros per square meter.
According to Bestgen, another third should include “rental apartments for medium-sized companies”, with rents ranging from eleven to 13 euros.
And the last third consists of condominiums, which Bestgen intends to market for probably just under 10,000 euros per square meter.
Bestgen hopes less for investors and more for owner-occupiers.
"If you want to buy an apartment in this high-rise, you have to have a certain attitude," he emphasizes.
This is all the more true as he wants to mix the different apartment types "very consistently".
That is why the social housing is not on the lowest floors and the expensive condominiums are at the top, but there will be both subsidized apartments and condominiums on the same floor.
But a good idea or a good concept alone is not enough to make such a project affordable.
It is not without reason that the most recent examples of high-rise residential buildings are primarily intended for wealthy residents.
The construction itself, technical requirements and expensive materials make tall buildings extra expensive.
This is all the more true for wooden high-rises, because German fire protection is also involved here.
The WoHo in Berlin, with the almost lavish use of space on the lower floors, also works because they were lucky with the price of the property: "We bought the property at a solid price before obtaining building permits," says Bestgen.
Project developers who are currently paying the extremely high building land prices are actually forced to build and market very expensive apartments.
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