Architect’s Berlin office lands 233m development

David Chipperfield has won a competition to design Hamburg’s tallest building.

The 233m mixed-use Elbtower will be built on a triangular waterside plot not far from Herzog & de Meuron’s Elbphilharmonie concert hall.

The site is located where the River Elbe and a canal converge at the eastern edge of the city’s emerging Hafencity district.

The 104,000sq m development will take the shape of a tapered office tower rising above a podium. The podium levels will contain a public atrium, hotel, shops, exhibition spaces and restaurants as well as links to local public transport.

The façade, clad in a light-coloured aluminium screen, is intended to play with reflections from the surrounding water. At night the tower will be lit by a kinetic light sculpture designed by Studio Other Spaces working with the “Tate sun” designer, Olafur Eliasson, and Sebastian Behmann.