Following on from the Baufeld 10 competition, the practice were shortlisted alongside a number of international practices, including Caruso St John, Raphael Vinoly, Zaha hadid, MVRDV and Sanaa Sejima, to develop proposals for the new Hafencity University.

The site marks a principal edge of a new urban extension to the historic centre of Hamburg. The scale of the project allowed us to consider it, in itself, as a small piece of city, powerfully juxtaposed against the epic horizon landscape of the River Elb.

The infrastructure of flood defence levels, parking and delivery access define a new constructed ground on which the project stands. We construct a low hill against the river, rising from the park to the East to establish a belvedere overlooking the river to the South and West. In programmatic terms, this describes a journey from the social, collective space of the Refectory, placed against the park, to the contemplative study spaces of the library, high up and looking to the horizon.

Larger scale public spaces define the territories of each principal element on the site: University Platz, Tower Platz and Elb Platz

At the largest scale, the project establishes a dialogue with two horizons -of the river and of the city. The tall tower, defined by the programme, places the University complex on the skyline of the city. It converses with the spires of the churches in the Centre and the other important public buildings in Hafencity. However the programme of the tower is straightforwardly commercial rather than public. It is therefore simple in form, relying on its materiality to establish its character.

Clad in translucent and transparent glass with vertical mullions of different depths dependent on orientation, the tower will change with the time of day, the season and the weather - striped by shadows from the mullions in the sunshine, a lantern in the darkness or disappearing against the white grey sky of an overcast day.

Viewed from the river, the tall tower becomes one of a series. Here it is joined by four smaller study towers - three of which contain the student workspaces and studios, while the fourth houses the library.

This lower cluster of towers mediate the scale of the tall tower to that of its more immediate context. They emerge from the horizontality of the waterfront elevation and define a strong silhouette for the project in relation to the horizon of the river, creating an iconic form of quiet intensity.