H&dM Wins The Box Hannover

HANNOVER, GERMANY — Our winning competition entry for The Box Hannover transforms the former Galeria Kaufhof Schmiedestrasse in Hannover’s city center into a new mixed-use destination with retail and dining spaces, a vocational school (Berufsschule) as the main tenant, and — on the roof — a publicly accessible garden, a sports hall, and high-quality housing, including approximately 100 small apartments and penthouses.

The project presents both a significant opportunity and a complex architectural challenge. The proposal for The Box Hannover begins by stripping the building back to its primary structural framework, reducing the former large-scale department store to its core structure. This existing framework is then unified with a “brick garment,” integrating the enormous, previously out-of-scale volume into the sensitive urban context at the interface with the historic old town.

The new façade consists of a double-layer system: an inner glazed layer that allows ample daylight to penetrate deep into the building, and an outer brick envelope that references Hannover’s historic fabric. The varying depth between these two layers creates intermediate zones that serve as informal break and circulation areas for students. In this way, the repurposed structure is deliberately positioned within the tradition of the city’s large public brick buildings while establishing a contemporary architectural identity.