Concept

We have expanded the Krefeld Süd campus with a new building for two institutes. With the building, we are forming a new green axis that creates a portal for the location and setting an example along the main street Obergath. The guiding principle for the building is the communication and networking of the users. To this end, we organise all the highly frequented room units in a completely transparent ground floor and the concentrated learning and working zones in a homogeneous, two-storey volume that floats above.

With the type of atrium house, we create maximum permeability between users and uses. The atrium, interior and surrounding landscape merge through generous glass facades. Students and lecturers have views of other spatial zones from all levels in the building - through the ring-shaped organization, we strengthen the potential of informal communication.

Krefeld has a long tradition as a weaving and silk city. We take up this historical analogy and envelop the two upper floors with a fine metal veil. The fabric provides sun and heat protection and symbolises the space for a concentrated teaching, learning and research atmosphere.

We designed the building as a concrete skeleton construction with stiffening exposed concrete cores. The two upper floors are inserted into the skeleton as a prefabricated timber element construction. This construction method has created a highly flexible building that can easily react to changes in use.

Construction

Cooling research and office buildings is more challenging than heating. From this, we developed an architectural theme: the façade of the building is multi-layered. The highly thermally insulated first skin is surrounded by a structure made of aluminium expanded metal at a distance of 1.25m. The rotating slats of this metal veil react to the position of the sun depending on the season and block direct sunlight. The rotation opens up views of the green surroundings and excellent daylight entry into the building at all times. As a contribution to the low-tech concept, night-time cooling wings support the natural cooling of the offices in the evening hours.

The cooling and heating energy for the new building is generated geothermally via 140m deep boreholes. The distribution of energy is water-based via the floor and ceiling of the building. A downstream heat pump uses geothermal energy in winter to generate heating energy. In summer, the system acts inversely for cooling.

Text: KarzelWillKarzel Architekten
Photos: Guido Erbring, Cologne and Frank Schoepgens, Cologne
Isometrics: Fabian Hahl in the seminar FACADE 4.0 at TUK

The preparatory work for this project publication was done as part of the building construction theory in the seminar FACADE 4.0 at the TUK through a student thesis by Fabian Hahl.

#solarlux #highline #elementfassade #glas bi-folding door # SL70e

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