The new building for the Faculty of Design at the Folkwang University of the Arts is located on the grounds of the Zollverein UNESCO World Heritage Site in Essen. The university's Faculty of Design with around 600 students and lecturers from photography, communication design and industrial design is housed in the new building.
The building is part of the "Design City" project, which is to be built with a mix of uses of hotel, design industry, university and residential on the site north of the Zollverein I/II/VIII mine, the former material storage area of the Zollverein colliery.
Inspired by the urban planning and architecture of the colliery, whose character is characterised by the orthogonal structures joined together, a building constellation of offset cubes of different sizes and heights was developed. This design language is nevertheless a reaction to the urban planning specifications of the master plan and mediates between the large-scale structure of the university and the planned buildings of the "Design City". The new building formulates the northern end of the area without forming rear sides. The main entrance is oriented towards the central greenery of the "Design City".
Inside, circulation areas and cross-storey air spaces link the individual bodies to form a spatial continuum in the floor plan and section. Different room depths define deep seminar rooms or narrow office spaces and ancillary rooms. The squares created by this arrangement, as well as incised courtyards and multi-storey air spaces, create a communicative place with different spatial qualities for teachers and students.
The four- to five-storey building is built on an underground car park as a reinforced concrete skeleton construction. The flushness of the outer shell refers to the design of the Zollverein colliery. Closed parapet elements alternate with glazed areas. Offsets within the parapet elements and the glazed areas depict the use of space and create a moving image. A vertical grid connects the order of the balustrades made of galvanized steel bech panels with the transparent areas of glass.
Source: MGF Architekten GmbH
Photos: krischerfotografie
