The ten-story office building from the 1970s stood vacant for far too long, becoming an unsightly burden in Düsseldorf’s Oberkassel district. With few other vacancies in the area and a huge housing demand, the city spearheaded a redevelopment project on the former freight yard site. The first construction phase, starting in 2016, established Belsenpark as a green focal point for the new quarter. However, this was preceded by our transformation of the adjacent office tower into a residential high-rise. While our firm had ample experience in renovating and revitalizing obsolete office buildings into modern workspaces, converting one to residential use is far more complex – an unusual but rewarding challenge we were excited to take on. Looking back, now that this project has become an integral part of the neighborhood, we can confidently say that this initiative was exemplary. Urban housing pressures haven’t eased, while the mountain of waste generated by the construction industry through demolition alone grows daily. Taking this unconventional approach of adaptive reuse has certainly paid off.