Trei Real Estate GmbH (Trei), a property developer and property asset holder for residential and retail real estate, just announced the winner of the architectural competition for its Zollhafen Mainz development. HPP Architekten from Düsseldorf emerged victorious from the competition in which seven architectural firms from all over Germany participated. The draft design convinced the jury members with its particularly high urban-planning and architectural qualities. The jury concluded that the winning design concept would integrate very smoothly into the Zollhafen quarter. The body praised its interaction with the neighbouring buildings as well as the reasonably distinct character of the two islands in terms of structure and materials: The project consists of two buildings and is spread across two islands. The property on the Hafeninsel III island will get a façade in multicoloured brick, while the Hafeninsel II island will have an exterior of sandstone-coloured concrete elements.
Volker Weuthen, senior partner at HPP Architekten, commented: “We are delighted to have come out on top of this competition. The requirements were challenging and yet exciting because of the attractive waterfront location with the surrounding canals.”
Pepijn Morshuis, CEO of Trei Real Estate, commented: “I would like to thank HPP Architekten for their beautiful winning design entry. The team of architects did an excellent job, and handled the requirements in a highly creative and convincing approach. I personally was particularly impressed by the highly usable floor plans with their high-end amenities. At the same time, the fire-protection requirements were accommodated in clever ways.”
In summer 2019, Trei had acquired the development sites “Hafeninsel II and III” in the northern part of Mainz. The company is planning to raise around 189 rental and ownership apartments here. The next step following the competition involves the preliminaries for the planning application.
The jury was composed of senior representatives of Trei, the City of Mainz, of Zollhafen GmbH & Co. KG along with the independent architects Albert Dietz (Frankfurt, chairman) and Alexander Vohl (Stuttgart) as advisers.
The specifications for the architectural firms stipulated that each of the port islands should evolve a distinct character. Their design structures were supposed to differ significantly from one another. The idea was to keep the two developments from looking like a matching pair. The differentiation between the two islands is already suggested by the way the apartments are marketed: While Hafeninsel II (“Fischerhof”) is earmarked for rental apartments, Hafeninsel III (“Lotsenhof”) is to be developed into condominiums. That being said, the technical-structural planning of the two building designs should have a common basis.