Central administration Weidenbornstraße, Wiesbaden (DE)
New building
Client: City of Wiesbaden, Property Office
Location: D-65189 Wiesbaden, Weidenbornstraße
Architecture: Dietrich Untertrifaller
Competition: 2021, 1. prize
Construction: 2022 – 2026
Area: 9,700 m²
Programme: Offices, shops, café, parking and bicycle garage
Team
Annabell Aichele, Fredi Botz, Sophia Brauner, Nina Burri, Franziska Müller (Project management), Björn Osmann, Alina Rapp, Julia Schmid
Text: Gerlinde Jüttner
Partners
Statics: Merz Kley Partner, Dornbirn
Sustainability: ZWP Ingenieure, Wiesbaden
Landscape: Storch Landschaftsarchitekten, Dresden
Citizen-friendly sustainability
Administrative offices scattered all over Wiesbaden no longer meet today's requirements in terms of proximity to citizens, sustainability and technology. We are therefore building a new, central administrative building for the Hessian state capital near the main railway station, which sends a forward-looking signal in terms of climate protection, sustainability and carbon footprint.
The long, five-storey block along the neighbourhood boulevard is elevated on the ground floor, creating a spacious passageway with views of the surrounding area. A café and small shops enliven the street space. A spacious staircase with a barrier-free ramp leads through the passage into the inner courtyard.
The inner courtyard as an enchanted garden forms the centrepiece of the new building. Accessible from all sides, you are immersed in a wild landscape of flowers and grasses. Steps and benches around the central water basin invite you to relax or socialise. Together with the green roof and façade, the courtyard also fulfils an important bioclimatic function in the urban environment.
Ecological and economical
The public entrance to the offices is located to the north, while the staff entrance and delivery area are on the south side. The system car park is quick to set up and, more importantly, quick to dismantle again, for a time with less individual traffic.
The building technology ensures an ecological and economical energy supply for the building. Plant-based insulating materials such as wood, straw, reed or hemp complement the ecological timber construction. These are completely compostable and form the basis for renewable raw materials at the end of their life cycle. District heating and a photovoltaic system on the roof are efficient, ecological energy sources. The green areas are watered with rainwater collected underground. The hybrid ventilation concept combines mechanical supply air and natural ventilation.
Façade features modular design
The building is conceived as a timber hybrid. The upper floors are designed as a pure timber construction with timber columns, a continuous solid timber ceiling and a curtain wall façade made of timber. Only the ground floor, the staircase cores and shafts are solid. The façade, in which two construction grids are combined to form a module, also shows the modular structure to the outside. The car park and the three-storey foyer annex are spanned by ropes, which over time will become overgrown and turn into green building elements.
The building's depth of 17 metres allows flexible use of the office space, whether initially as cellular offices with a central zone or later as combined offices or open-plan areas. Regularly skipping individual offices creates niches, communication zones, air spaces over several storeys or outdoor spaces as well as always exciting views and perspectives.
