Transforming a historic corporate headquarters into Frankfurt's largest data center
Digital Realty | Neckermann Building Structural Retrofit & Data Center | Frankfurt am Main, Germany
DPR began transforming the monument-listed Neckermann building into a modern data center. DPR completed the piling, the cold dark shell and fit-out of FRA18, the first 16 megawatts of capacity. This expansive building was originally designed by Egon Eiermann (1904-1970) and completed in 1961. It is the former headquarters for Neckermann, a mail order company. The building had been vacant since 2012.
Partners
Structural & Appearance Modifications
Courtyard
The existing building's open courtyard was converted into usable space in the new facility. After areas adjacent to the courtyard were partially demolished, piles were added, a new foundation was poured, followed by precast and cast-in-place elements.
Photo: Harmen Rockler
Rooftop
A new roof structure spanning two levels was added to accommodate the facility's cooling equipment. The heavy loads—both from the rooftop equipment, and from the addition of the IT infrastructure—required the building to be structurally reinforced.
Photo: Harmen Rockler
Façade Restoration
The original windows were removed from the building, restored and then re-installed to adhere to the Hesse State Office for Monument Preservation's standards and preserve the building's appearance.
Photo: Harmen Rockler
Structural & Appearance Modifications
Courtyard
The existing building's open courtyard was converted into usable space in the new facility. After areas adjacent to the courtyard were partially demolished, piles were added, a new foundation was poured, followed by precast and cast-in-place elements.
Photo: Harmen Rockler
Rooftop
A new roof structure spanning two levels was added to accommodate the facility's cooling equipment. The heavy loads—both from the rooftop equipment, and from the addition of the IT infrastructure—required the building to be structurally reinforced.
Photo: Harmen Rockler
Façade Restoration
The original windows were removed from the building, restored and then re-installed to adhere to the Hesse State Office for Monument Preservation's standards and preserve the building's appearance.
Photo: Harmen Rockler
Environmental Health & Safety Creating a culture of safety
This project brought together over 2,000 operatives from 49 countries, with several languages spoken. This created a challenge to implement a unified safety culture on site. Trades with a variety of backgrounds and concepts of what it means to work safely—often with a mindset of complying with the law—adopted DPR's approach to preventing incidents. Creating a single, cohesive environmental health and safety (EHS) team from all the trades helped instill a prevention mindset.
DPR conducted weekly walks with the EHS personnel from all the trades. As the group walked the site together, they focused on things that could be done in a better way and rewarded good practices. Conducting these observations together led to a mutual commitment to make improvements. A regular supervisor’s lunch also helped promote safety discussions in a less formal way. DPR’s team was able to understand how trades experienced working with DPR and how to better support them.
This “one team” approach also featured in EHS meetings. Rather than have DPR tell trades what they needed to do and what expectations were, the team defined expectations together. That lead to greater adoption of safe practices from workers on site, ranging from proper personal protective equipment use to being better equipped for working at height.
Building with clarity Virtual Design & Construction
Virtual design and construction was used to facilitate the work of the project team.
Laser scanning
Repurposing the existing building depended on having a clear understanding of the spatial constraints with measurements in precise detail. Laser scanning during the MEP design revealed that the original building's concrete beams sagged in the middle, with four centimeters of difference between the sides and middle. This, in turn, affected how the MEP was designed and installed. For instance, the busbar—a metallic power distribution bar—needed to be re-positioned to avoid clashing with other infrastructure on the ceiling.
Two types of laser scanning techniques were used: Terrestrial laser scanning and simultaneous localization and mapping. TLS was used in areas where a high level of accuracy was needed, such as for producing detailed "heat maps" to highlight any non-uniform areas. As the building neared completion, SLAM scanning was used to create as-built documentation and a 3D model. This technique uses a Lidar sensor mounted on a wearable vest and captures data as it is walked around the jobsite.
3D visualizations for permits
The Hesse State Office for Monument Preservation needed to approve any changes to the visual appearance of the building to maintain its monument-listed status. The design called for two additional rooftop levels to be built for the cooling and other technical equipment. As part of the permit submission, DPR created 3D visualizations of the technical installations to clearly demonstrate what the building would look like after completion, including the appearance from the street.
Drone and 360-degree photography
The project team used drone and 360-degree photography to give Digital Realty, designers and trades a clear understanding of the status and what work had been completed, even when some members of the team were not physically at the jobsite. The interior was captured on a weekly basis, while the exterior was captured roughly every week to two weeks, varying based on the project phase.
In addition to saving a snapshot of the exterior, the project team also used drone photography to illustrate and define how logistics would proceed. For instance, the team mapped where access restrictions would be and how materials and traffic would flow on the jobsite. This benefited communication with trade partners—reducing misunderstandings or logistical conflicts—while also improving safety.
Interior photography was digitally overlaid on top of floor plans and time-stamped so that team members could navigate to the same point and check progress over time. Capturing these interior images also revealed discrepancies between the actual situation and the structural model, which avoided spatial constraints affecting MEP installations.
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