Where others are still building, people are already renting here
The demand for housing in Berlin is enormous - and space is limited. A new building is being constructed in Hohenschönhausen with 172 residential units of various sizes. Varying flat and bathroom layouts make such construction sites complex. For a speedy construction process, individually planned and industrially prefabricated registers and sanitary walls were used in the bathrooms of all flats. This significantly reduces the installation times for the sanitary, heating and ventilation lines; the property can be let on time.
Residential project in Berlin: General contractor relies on system construction from TECE
Since May 2015, a horseshoe-shaped residential complex has been under construction on the 8,100 square metre site in the Berlin district of Hohenschönhausen, consisting of a connected structure with a total of seven blocks and around 11,500 square metres of living space.
The different flat types, from one-and-a-half to four-room flats, offer space for different lifestyles and budgets. In addition, the flats on the ground floor are barrier-free. The flats should be ready for occupancy at the end of the year. This is an ambitious goal: for the general contractor in charge, Ten Brinke, a specialist in the construction of turnkey residential, industrial and commercial buildings, one of the most effective measures to optimise the construction process was the use of industrially prefabricated pre-wall registers.
Planning reliability through prefabrication
Die industrielle Vorfertigung garantiert nicht nur einen hohen Qualitätsstandard. Vor allem stehen die Kosten von Anfang fest und sind transparent – für den Handwerksunternehmer und den Bauherren. Das schafft für alle Beteiligten zusätzliche Planungssicherheit.
Julian Rüsen, the responsible project manager at Ten Brinke, is satisfied: "This is not the first project in which we have used TECEsystem Register. Compared to conventionally constructed pre-walls, we save a good 50 percent installation time thanks to prefabrication." The registers were planned individually for the four different bathroom floor plans, manufactured in the TECE factory and delivered to the construction site ready for connection in 14 partial deliveries.
For each just-in-time delivery, the registers arrive for half a block. This is precisely timed: The TECEsystem service package also includes one sample register for each of the different bathroom types. These samples are installed on a trial basis to make sure that everything fits. The big advantage for the sanitary installers of the contracted TGS GmbH: The sample installations made it possible to plan the installation time and the required labour capacity for the rest of the building project precisely. Thus, the assembly on the building structure and the connection of the risers and downpipes took about 1.5 weeks. The walls of stable supporting structure contain the complete sanitary technology as well as all pipelines for drinking water and waste water, heating and ventilation.
Instead of individual products, a finished unit is installed on the construction site. TECEsystem also meets the requirements for fire, sound and heat protection. All components are perfectly matched and installed in accordance with standards. The registers include washbasin and toilet modules with the TECE universal cistern.
Ralf Thorwesten and Michael Armeloh from TECE's technical office staff were responsible for the smooth process on site. In addition to providing advice in advance, he coordinated the coordination processes and determined the product requirements: "With a project of this size, any delay in the construction process represents a financial risk for the client. Thanks to the fast turnaround time of industrial prefabrication and subsequent just-in-time delivery, we minimise this risk." In Gärtnerstraße, the construction of the sanitary facilities went reliably according to plan. The plumbers mostly assembled the registers directly after delivery. If the construction process or capacity did not permit immediate assembly, the registers were stored theft-proof in the TECE container provided with the first delivery.
Stress-free assembly and high quality standards
The flats on the ground floor are all accessible without barriers. In order to also make the shower area barrier-free, the TECEdrainline shower channel was used here. Thanks to the channel and the fully tiled floor, it was possible to do without partition walls, which provides a generous feeling of space. The TECEdrainline scope of delivery includes the Seal System sealing tape, which ensures a permanently sealed connection of the shower channel to the composite seal, tested with a wide range of sealing slurries. In the four-room flats of the building complex, the future tenant is treated to two bathrooms: one with a bathtub, the other with a shower. Because both bathrooms are directly adjacent, the sanitary register also serves as a partition wall here. Thanks to the integrated sound and heat insulation, the occupant does not notice any difference to a solid wall.
After planking and tiling the pre-walls, the final assembly followed. The universal cisterns included in the registers, were pre-assembled at the factory with filling valves and water connections. The inspection openings are provided with seals that are only now broken. This procedure complies with the drinking water ordinance and guarantees cleanliness as well as functionality of the cistern. For the actuator plates, the buyer and landlord of the property, HOWOGE Wohnungsbaugesellschaft mbH, had a choice of several variants. Three different TECE plates were installed in the first finished sample flats. The choice fell on TECEnow. All TECE actuations are compatible with each other. This means that a different one can easily be used in future renovations or conversions.
Fotos: Dirk Hasskarl