Since the mid 2000s, the City of Offenbach am Main has been engaged in a large-scale urban development project to transform a former riverside industrial area into a new residential district. When site preparation began in 2009, the foundation stone was laid for the “Hafen Offenbach” project. Since then, on this 25.6 hectare site northwest of the inner city, work has been progressing on building new apartments, offices, retail space and public parks, including the “Untere Molenpark” and the “Obere Molenpark”. The new building for Offenbach’s University of Art and Design (Hochschule für Gestaltung Offenbach) is also part of the project. The site is divided into two sections along the River Main: a riverside strip and an island. In 2013 the first development on the island was completed: the
 “Mainzeile”, housing designed and built for the local-authority housing company ABG Frankfurt Holding by Stefan Forster Architekten.

This eight-storey residential complex, built to the passive house standard, consists of three linear blocks containing a total of 178 rental apartments. The blocks stretch between the two distinctive end sections in a 250-meter line along the bend of the river. Like the end sections, the base storeys of the curved block are finished with red comb rendering on both sides – a unifying element that is both a reference to the former industrial port area and an architectural signal of the unity of the complex.

To link the new district of “Hafen Offenbach” to the banks of the river, there are two double-height passageways running through each section of the building. Because of the noise emissions from industrial plant on the north bank of the Main, the river-facing side of this complex presents a closed façade; all loggias are positioned on the south side. The ground plans of the apartments facing both sides also conform to rigid acoustic insulation specifications, which means that ancillary rooms like kitchens and bathrooms face north but bedrooms and lounges face south, where generously sized, continuous loggias connect the main rooms together. On the ground floor, small front gardens continue the opening out of the apartments towards the outside.