The “Weltquartier” in Hamburg’s Wilhelmsburg district was created in connection with the IBA 2013 – a model intercultural housing project intended to house more than 1,700 inhabitants originating from 30 different nations. Gerber Architekten extended a traditional workers’ housing development with two new buildings that respond to the most fundamental elements of the existing architecture and reinterpret them by incorporating sculptural head-end volumes, whilst simultaneously reconciling them with the high energy efficiency requirements of a “passive building”. There are a total of 75 publicly funded housing units, of different sizes and offering different forms of accommodation; they combine accommodation types suitable for single persons, couples and families, thereby ensuring an appropriately-mixed social profile for the Weltquartier.