European Business: You once stated that not taking advantage of wood’s ability, as a construction material, to safely store atmospheric CO₂ verges on negligence. How did your focus on sustainable building come about?

Achim Nagel: I’ve been an architect for 40 years now, while PRIMUS Developments has been around for 25 years at this point. Initially, we largely focused on redeveloping old port facilities in the Rhein-Main and Ruhr regions of Western Germany, before we shifted our focus further north to Hamburg, where I live. Our emphasis had been on sustainable architecture and urban planning concepts for quite some time. A pivotal moment came about in 2014, when we built Greenpeace’s Germany headquarters in Hamburg, incorporating a wide range of sustainability features. This experience allowed us to explore which measures and sustainable technologies have the greatest impact and to fundamentally deepen our expertise in designing sustainable buildings and the entire project management process that comes with it. 

European Business: What are some of the projects PRIMUS Developments has been involved in since?

Achim Nagel: In 2016, we completed Woodie, a building completely made of timber which houses more than 370 student dormitories in the Wilhelmsburg district of Hamburg. This project proved not only technically feasible but also financially viable, as we successfully secured funding and achieved a strong exit when we sold the building a short time later. Building on this success, we expanded our role to include work as a general contractor alongside our development projects. This has led to a particularly fruitful cooperation with Kaufmann, a modular construction company from Austria with whom we worked on our first project in this capacity: the “Luise”, an office building for the German federal parliament worth €50 million – and the first of many public sector projects we have been involved in. Currently, we are working on the temporary residence of the President of Germany, which he will use while Bellevue Castle is undergoing renovations, as well as a building for the German University of Public Administration and two dormitories for the Federal Customs Authority in Rostock. 

European Business: More and more stringent sustainability and ESG rules are said to have contributed to rapidly rising costs in the construction sector. Do you think sustainability can be reconciled with affordable housing?

Achim Nagel: I am a member of Hamburg’s Initiative for Cost-Effective Building which is currently working to develop new solutions to address the urgent need for more affordable housing. From my perspective, three major cost drivers require attention: The first is the technical infrastructure integrated into modern buildings. A few decades ago, this cost factor typically accounted for approximately 25% of a project’s budget, perhaps slightly more for data centers or similar facilities. Today, however, this share often exceeds 40%. Reversing this trend will be hard to achieve, as special interests have profited substantially from the monstrous regulatory demands that have made these cost increases possible, but we need to try. Secondly, we must create space for key innovations that can pave the way to simpler and more cost-effective construction methods, for example along the lines of my dear colleague Florian Nagler’s current projects in Bad Aibling. Another notable cost driver lies in the excessive over-dimensioning of structural reinforcements in most buildings. Addressing these issues will most likely yield the greatest cost benefits – and allow for more sustainable and affordable housing.