Casino in West, Berlin

The “Reuter Combined Heat and Power Plant,” a historic landmark now part of the Vattenfall Group, was West Berlin’s most important electricity supplier. In 2012, the company now known as “Heizkraftwerke Berlin Feststoffe” commissioned the architectural firm Gruber + Popp to modernize the plant cafeteria and develop a new visitor center. Between 2012 and 2016, new facilities were built on the site. The core element of the concept for the “Casino in West” and the visitor center is a long wall made of a uniform material throughout. With a focus on maximizing natural light and optimizing the layout of pathways, this wall divides the sequence of spaces. The rear of the wall houses projector equipment for the visitor area and a storage room; in the cafeteria area, food display cases and counters for meal service are integrated. REA gypsum was chosen as the wall material—a sustainable recycled product from the company’s own flue gas cleaning process, which, with its emphasis on recycling, aligns well with the group’s corporate identity. The built-in sandwich panels are based on an extremely rigid honeycomb structure made of recycled PET (C2C-certified). In addition to the service wall, which stands out thanks to its unique design, translucent green information boxes serve as “eye-catchers” in the casino.