Halde Workspace

The Kohlenwäsche was built in 1936 to wash coal; it is concrete of almost geological stubbornness. Conversion meant subtraction: floors were opened with surgical saw cuts, new services threaded through old chutes, and daylight introduced through roof monitors where conveyors once ran.

New structure never mimics old. Steel stair towers stand clear of the original frame, their bolted connections readable at a glance. Where coal once moved, people now move — the great vertical halls became a covered street of workshops shared by forty companies.

The building’s carbon ledger justified everything. Reusing the frame saved an estimated eleven thousand tonnes of embodied emissions versus demolition — the greenest structure on the site is the one already standing.