Engineering in Dialogue with City and Landscape

connecting people

The expansion of the A1 between the Hamburg Südost interchange and the new Süderelbe interchange is creating a future-ready transport link for thousands of people every day. Over a stretch of 5.27km, a high-capacity eight-lane roadway is being built to reliably connect commuters, businesses, and logistics networks. By reorganizing the Hamburg Norderelbe interchange, the project enables a continuous alignment of the A1—an essential step toward smoother traffic flow throughout Hamburg’s southern region.

paving the way

The planning of this complex infrastructure project was carried out by a joint engineering consortium together with the firms BUNG and Böger & Jäckle. A total of twelve bridge structures are being renewed and built using modern construction methods—including integral steel and prestressed-concrete bridges, composite structures, and trough structures.

The new motorway interchange will feature technically demanding structures: a roughly 125m overpass and a trough structure of about 280m ensure safe traffic connections. These are complemented by eight deep-founded retaining structures and more than 7km of noise barriers.

Throughout the entire construction period, traffic on the A1 will remain uninterrupted thanks to a 6+0 traffic management scheme.

Special challenges such as high groundwater levels, low-bearing soils near the Norderelbe, or deep excavation pits requiring underwater concrete or sealing bases were addressed using innovative engineering methods.

All planning is carried out using the BIM methodology. Comprehensive 3D models represent both the existing infrastructure and the new construction—including all specialist models such as geotechnical data and utility routing. This approach enabled efficient and transparent variant studies, plan derivations, visualizations, and quantity and cost calculations.

creating construction culture

In this project, technical precision, sustainable construction, and high quality standards come together. To address the urgent need to renew the Norderelbe Bridge, additional partial approval procedures and early construction measures were developed and coordinated—an essential contribution to accelerating the overall process.

The result is an infrastructure project that goes far beyond pure functionality and will shape the region’s building culture for decades to come—technically, architecturally, and socially.