"As architects, we are currently challenged to find urban-planning answers to the ongoing digitization, globalization, individualization and urbanization," explains Eike Becker. High-rise buildings can help to create missing living space in big cities.

This Friday the weather was sunny and warm. One of those Berlin afternoons when the city seemed to be a bit greener, airier and more easy going than on the days before. From the top floor of the recently completed carcass of a building the guests of the topping-out ceremony and myself had a panoramic view over the entire city. In the east we saw the high-rises at Alexanderplatz, in the west those at Breitscheidplatz. From our vantage point everything looked orderly and well placed. After the address at the ceremony the mood is quite happy when a lawyer joins us at our table. “Well, in September the HOAI will be a thing of the past” is his offensive opening. “Then the fee order for architects and engineers will be history.”

The design competition for Eike Becker_Architekten received recognition for the building competition for the 3,000 m² property on Kurfürstenstraße 72-74, to which eight offices were invited. The first prize went to Barkow Leibinger. We sincerely congratulate the very esteemed colleagues!

As part of the Day of Architecture planners and architects invite the interested public on 29 and 30 June to take a look behind the scenes of their work. The program includes around 100 guided tours, construction site tours and city walks. One of them is our project The Garden - a green residential oasis in the middle of the city.

Following exemplary cooperation with the Frankfurt authorities, we have today received the building permit for our office tower in Europa-Allee, which will become the new FAZ's publishing house headquarters.

After many years I stand at the Acropolis again, this time together with my daughter. A cool wind lets us forget the efforts of climbing the steep stairs of the Propylaea. It is getting quiet. The sea of houses below us is harmonically embedded in the valley between the barren crests of the Hymettus, Pendelikon and Parnitha mountains and from up here the city looks peaceful and almost well-ordered.

On May 27, 2019, Sven Eisle, CEO of the Berlin Civil Servants Association, together with district mayor Martin Hikel and architect Eike Becker, laid the foundation stone for a 20-storey high-rise building in Gropiusstadt, Neukölln, housing 116 affordable rental apartments of various sizes.

According to the designs of Eike Becker_Architekten, a five-storey office building is being built at Revaler Strasse 32, which is perfectly tailored to the needs of e-commerce companies, start-ups and the creative industry due to the loft-like flex space character.

We could now tell you how successful we are, what great projects we are developing, how sympathetic your new colleagues are and how fantastic the view from our office is. But we do not do it!

The construction sign is fixed. The excavation pit has been dug. The excavators are rolling. Start of construction on our cooperative project on Theodor-Loos-Weg in Berlin's Gropiusstadt.

Gewobag is celebrating its 100th anniversary this year - and our project WATERKANT Berlin plays a not insignificant role. The largest development project of the municipal housing company is not only optimally on schedule, it is also exemplary for the contract, which took over the Gewobag in 1919: to build affordable housing for all citizens of Berlin.

The conversion of the former Siemens towers at the Kaiserlei roundabout in Offenbach is progressing: the middle section of the upper five floors has been removed. The breakthrough will provide more light in the new public space.

100th Bauhaus anniversary. 50th anniversary of Walter Gropius's death. Against this background, our project on the Theodor-Loos-Weg, which picks up on Gropius's idea of ??a leap and introduces it to the modern age, is given a very particular topicality.

In Ludwigshafen, our residential district HEIMATUFER forms the entrance to the newly developing South Bank of the Rhine. A first impression of how the project will look after completion is provided by the new video by the developer Deutsche Wohnwerte.

According to the energy concept of Bahnstadt, the COLOURS was built in passive house construction. Specifically, this means that the building ensemble may consume about 80% less heating energy than "normal" new buildings. This claim is already ambitious for residential buildings, but represents a particular challenge for office and commercial space.

Eike Becker on trade halls 2.0 in the magazine immobilienmanager, which deals with the main topic Mixed Use in the April issue. Given the lack of space, mixed uses are the order of the day - distributed in the quarter, stacked in high-rise buildings or hidden in backyards.

The MIPIM-winning Woodie concept will be transferred to the office building segment in Offenbach. At the old harbor "Rocky Wood" is being built, modern offices in wooden module construction - designed by Eike Becker_Architekten.

High-quality architecture with a modern space utilization concept and sustainable energy supply: WATERKANT Berlin is a flagship project involving many creative minds. Including the Berlin architectural office Eike Becker_Architekten who have worked out the concept of the first subproject.

Eike Becker_Architekten and Hadi Teherani Architects won first prize in an international competition for the new headquarters of the National Iranian Gas Company in Tehran. The jury was convinced by the holistic approach, which is dedicated to the central principles of Iranian architectural history leading them into modernity.

Eike Becker_Architekten convinced with their design for the 70 meter high boarding and office tower A-TOWN HIGH in the Augsburg Innovation Park. The invited offices included Studio Libeskind from New York, Henning Larsen from Copenhagen, and Allmann Sattler Wappner and Kupferschmidt Architekten from Munich.

Eike Becker_Architekten in the category All Eyes on German Architecture 2019 of the current issue of the magazine discover GERMANY, Switzerland & Austria. The bilingual magazine reports monthly on the latest trends in architecture, design, culture and business.

We fought. We sweated. And we won. The trophy once again decorates our office – and has to be defended on 7 September 2019.

The winner of the architectural competition for the residential high-rise at Frankfurt's main railway station, sponsored by Groß & Partner and PHOENIX Real Estate, has been announced: congratulations to the colleagues from Mecanoo. The design by Eike Becker_Architekten made it onto the shortlist.

The mood of a new beginning would not be expected in the newspaper industry at present. According to the general findings, digitisation leads to the loss of subscriptions and advertising customers. Still, construction is strong. A number of media companies are moving into new locations in Germany at the same time.

In the construction sector, full employment has been achieved almost everywhere in Germany. Companies have long since turned into applicants for young talent. This makes the relationship between employees and employers more balanced and equal. A good development. Almost like in the Bundesliga or the Premier League, the salaries and transfer fees for skilled workers are being increased in large steps ("Manchester United was yesterday. You will become a star in the construction industry"). Some already call it "War for Talents."

Four offices. Four different architectural signatures. One goal: a new multifaceted residential quarter in the best location on the River Rhine in Speyer. The planning application for our LOOP_SIDE quarter has been submitted.

At 9.00 am in the morning, I enter the “E-Werk”, the abandoned epicentre of the Berlin club scene of the 90s. Suits are in attendance here today. Prof. Dr. Ulrich Walter opens the lecture series. He was in space for ten days in 1993. Today, the physicist is a professor of space technology at the TU Munich, no longer wears a space suit, now has white hair and is a smooth speaker. To my surprise, he talks about the future of mankind in our solar system and the colonisation of the Milky Way. I don't care about that at all. The subject is just too far away. I bend over my phone and answer my e-mails that have accumulated.

Can there be a just state that lets all people live happily and that will provide for them? Thomas More already asked this question as a contemporary of Erasmus von Rotterdam and Martin Luther. The work "Utopia" is the first utopian novel, a model for many that followed. It features the account of a seafarer who claims to have come across an ideal state on a far-flung island. Thomas More discusses with him: Should there be private property? Is social equality good? Can a society generate enough goods if nobody strives for profit? Is there a good and just head of state? More might ask his questions as follows today: Who decides city? Who decides what is built where and how? And how is building law created? In a constitutional state, a pluralist democracy, in Berlin?

After 30 years, I return to the terrace of Vaux-le-Vicomte Castle and look over the ground floor of Broderie, past the Bassines des Tritons, over the Cascades up the hill to the gleaming golden statue of Hercules Farnese. The garden architect André Le Nôtre invented the French baroque garden with this masterpiece. Long before the steam engine and the Industrial Revolution. A geometric wonder park, conceived and controlled by the human mind in an inhospitable environment. Le Nôtre already knew that the world is a globe, but he would not have dreamed that his idea of a man-made world would one day embrace the entire earth. When my small group finally reaches Hercules Farnese, leaning casually on his club, we are tired from the blazing heat and do not even find any cool under the centuries-old plane trees. The lawns are withered and the over 100 fountains have been shut down.

Subsequent densification is the topic of the hour. Sounds like a mixture of packhorse, container ship and tenement barracks. And many authorities, armed with their current building laws, are fighting like rugby players to defend every additional metre. But in the world’s most attractive metropolises, people live together densely. Is construction in Germany possibly too low, too narrow, too loose and overall too airy? In my column in Immobilienwirtschaft 06/2018, I ask whether cities cannot also become better if their inhabitants move together more closely. However, urban densification must be politically intended and planned holistically. Then much denser cities could also become places with a high quality of life and community life.

The cheering of the enthusiastic patrons roars around me in the “Schuetzenzelt” tent at the Munich Oktoberfest. My gaze wanders from the gallery over the party makers, almost completely decked out in traditional costume. There are thousands in this tent alone. My Bavarian host is also surprised at so much global devotion to the lederhosen traditions of the region and enlightens me, “in the seventies, in our youth, we were all here in jeans.” Today, he regards this traditional costume show as a masquerade. Is it simply a kind of carnival and the joy of slipping into another identity? Dressing up as a Bavarian girl today, and as a Northern girl tomorrow? But on the “Wiesen”, at the Munich Oktoberfest, everyone is dressed in similar costume, and that as traditional as possible. This is about being part of a community, about cohesion strengthened by traditions and belonging to a group. This does address me emotionally.

On my journey through the world of architecture, I am always amazed at events taking place and wonder why this is actually happening, how it is happening and how it could be improved. On the jury for the ZIA (Zentraler Immobilien Ausschuss) Innovation Report, I discussed a host of projects for a whole day that might make our cities better.

We miss our connecting flight and experience a desert metropolis in Amman that has to fend for itself, a city far removed from international trade flows, without billions from oil but with millions of refugees. Jordan borders on the crisis-ridden areas of Palestine and Syria; the Jordan and the Dead Sea have all but dried up, not many tourist attractions that have emerged since Roman antiquity. The people here have a hard time getting by in the dusty heat. At least, there is peace.

For the social cohesion of society, my agenda for strategic urban development is as follows: Strengthen public institutions, draw up new urban development plans, adapt existing land use plans, generally build more densely and higher...

In 2021 the newspaper with a global readership will move its office to the high-rise office building in Europaallee designed by Eike Becker_Architekten.

Innovations are only good if they support the vividness and creativity, the diversity and richness of different ways of life.