/// Zollverein School of Management and Design
Location: Essen, Germany
Finished: 2006
Owner: Zollverein Essen Company
Architect: SANNA Tokio & Heinrich Böll Essen
Construction: Bollinger +Grohmann Ingenieure Frankfurt
Building services: Transsolar Stuttgart & Winter Ingenieure Düsseldorf
Executor company: Schäfer Bauten Ibbenbüren
Concept:
To revitalization an abandoned mine site and to turn it into attraction point, Zollverein School of Management and Design had been built. From the architects side a jointless concrete cube with 34 m length was provided. 150 window had perforated the building facade. The building plan was divided to a lecture hall and a lower floor level as a building services floor. The first floor level had a ceiling height with approx. 10 m accommodating seminar areas, the three other levels contains seminar rooms, administration offices and roof gardens.
For the jointless concrete facade, after searching for alternatives, a solution was chosen to form a massive concrete shell without thermal break, this was only accepted by assumption that approx. 30° warm water from the disused coal mine could be used, through pipes that distributed all over the facade to heat up the entire building. By applying this active thermal barrier, as a result there was no need to apply multi shell construction with conventional insulation.
The building impresses by its dimension, massiveness and unique technical solution that is only be able to applied specially in this location in favor to the temperature of the mine water.
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