Siemensstadt Square – cooperative planning and construction

March 13, 2023

Last week, a multi-party agreement for the Siemensstadt Square project was signed by all of the project partners, including AUKETT + HEESE, which will be responsible for the architectural object planning.

Siemensstadt Square is a complex construction project comprised of two new buildings – an atrium building with approximately 15,000 m² of gross floor area and a 60-metre high-rise building with approximately 27,000 m² of gross floor area – and around 20,000 m² of open space and outdoor facilities, including an information pavilion. Construction is scheduled to begin in 2024.

Not only is the project itself innovative, however: so too is the way it will be managed. Instead of concluding numerous individual contracts, a multi-party agreement was signed as part of a construction method called integrated project delivery (IPD) in which all important partners – from planning to implementation – are involved from the outset. This means that all partners are jointly responsible for the overall success of the project and also significantly improves transparency. In addition to AUKETT + HEESE, the contract partners for the Siemensstadt Square project include the building contractor Siemens Real Estate (SRE) together with Siemens Smart Infrastructure (building technology), ZWP (technical building equipment planning), Apleona Wolfferts (technical building equipment execution), Hochtief (structural engineering + exterior installations) and Lindner (façades + interior fit-out). The project team will be supported by IPD coach Yukon Projects.

Integrated project development (IPD), a concept that is already well established in the Anglo-American world, is helping to bring a new culture of cooperative partnerships to the German construction industry. In IPD projects, all parties work together, and the cooperative project work is characterised by a common interest in the success of the project.

This cooperative approach fits seamlessly into the ongoing digital planning of the overall project, which is being created using the BIM method. In this project, all partners have access to the same data model – the digital twin – of the future Siemensstadt Square.

The project office in Siemensstadt Square has been designed as a co-working space where all members of the IPD team can work together interactively.