Henry Koerner Hall Student Residence / Atelier Kempe Thill

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Text description provided by the architects. Pankow-Niederschönhausen is a neighbourhood in Berlin characterised by an open urban structure, large and green private gardens, and streets planted with big powerful trees. The originally intended closed and dense urban blocks haven‘t been achieved in the entire area over time, but are still to be found on its edges. Instead, the neighbourhood is dominated by an informal development of urban villas, semi-detached, and single-family houses which could be described as “urban suburb”. Embassies of many countries were erected there during the GDR era, which resulted in a delicate balance between residential and public functions. The former embassies, designed in a late modern style, stand all on spacious plots of land with park-like gardens. The embassy buildings in Pankow were no longer needed after the German reunification and as a result, remained empty.