Roots / Hamburg, Germany / Combilift 551

Roots Hamburg – Sustainable parking at the wooden high-rise in the Elbbrückenquartier district

A new piece of city on the waterfront: The Roots wooden high-rise building in Hamburg's HafenCity Elbbrückenquartier district is a pioneering project for urban timber construction in Germany. Standing on a 3,200 square meter site in Baakenhafen, the 65-meter-high building is a striking urban landmark and, together with the planned Elbtower, forms the eastern end of HafenCity.

Roots stands on an area that was first made usable through land reclamation – and takes on a key function as a landmark between urban space and water. The combination of residential, commercial, and public uses in the base structure reinforces the urban character of the quarter and follows the HafenCity model: mixed-use and lively urban spaces.

Architecture and planning

The design is by Hamburg-based architects Störmer Murphy and Partners, who already have experience with hybrid timber buildings in the area. The project was realized between 2020 and 2024 in collaboration with project developer Garbe Immobilien-Projekte GmbH and the German Wildlife Foundation. Roots is considered a benchmark project for sustainable construction and has already won several awards.

Roots is constructed as a wood-concrete hybrid: a total of around 5,500 m³ of structural timber was used. Prefabricated components enabled precise and efficient assembly. The upper floors house 128 condominiums and 53 publicly subsidized rental apartments. The first two upper floors of the tower accommodate office space for the German Wildlife Foundation.

Mobility and parking

A shared underground car park with almost 100 parking spaces was built in the basement, accessed via two car lifts. All parking spaces have charging infrastructure for electric vehicles. Fifty parking spaces are arranged in a space-saving manner in four semi-automatic WÖHR Combilift 551 systems. Additional space is available for car sharing. The reduced parking space ratio of 0.4 per residential unit and the use of compact WÖHR systems support the neighborhood's sustainable mobility strategy and contribute to reducing construction costs.

Product specifications:

• WÖHR Combilift 551 divided into 4 systems
• 50 parking spaces
• Platform load max. 2.6 t
• Platform width max. 240 cm
• Vehicle length max. 500 cm
• Vehicle height max. 180 cm
• Operation via RFID chip

Note: Systems shown may differ from the current state of the art.

Project plans