This residential and commercial building at Alexanderplatz maintains a calm presence in an urban context that was fragmented during the 20th century, a patchwork of architectural styles and town planning models that will be augmented in the near future with a cluster of tower blocks.

Within this heterogeneous context, the Alea 101 building, with its articulation of three stacked volumes that are gently twisted in relation to one another, uses different offsets and directions, colours and materials to respond to its surroundings in a variety of ways: an embodiment of the palimpsest of the city. At ground level, a slightly concave shop window façade with gently rounded corners eases the flow of pedestrian traffic on all sides. Above it rests a dark, reflective box that resolves at close quarters into rectangular fields in a subtly varied range of colours. Golden lettering adorns the fields, signalising that these levels are used to stock merchandise.

The uppermost box presents a structural grid of white, glass-fibre reinforced concrete that, in terms of its materials and proportion, echoes the façades of the neighbouring Alexanderhaus and Berolinahaus. The two levels here contain apartments and offices, grouped around an organically curved courtyard on the fourth floor that serves as a communal garden and external entry court. This tranquil outdoor area offers an almost surreal contrast to the apartments’ urban outlook, playing off the idyll of the village against the drama of the big city.