Emscher G Pavillon

Bottrop

In this bizarre space of a sprawling industrial landscape, the pavilion was conceived as a fascinatingly graceful belvedere. It is an explicitly technical structure that follows the topographical movement, yet, positioned precisely at the junction between the wastewater treatment plant and the forest, it makes the previously barely noticeable boundary between technology and nature tangible once again.

Its transparent membrane, formed by two glass slopes, rises at the same angle as the hillside and seems to grow directly out of it. Beneath this membrane, suspended between two slender, silver-shimmering towers and supported by a steel bridge beam, stretches a bright, multifunctional exhibition space. This space, along with the bridge beam above it and its attractive viewing platform, offers a panoramic view of a distinctive part of the Ruhr region.

Structurally, the towers serve as supports for the bridge, while functionally they act as gateways to the exhibition and viewing platform. Behind their skin of silvery, shiny corrugated metal, the extensive technical systems of the pavilion are housed. The steel bridge beam, in turn, serves as a support for the delicate truss girders made of sheet steel, which hold the frameless glass lamellas that form the membrane, using equally graceful stainless steel wire clamps.

It is an intelligent skin over an extremely reduced skeleton, with the exhibition space matching its flexibility and transparency.

Six display panels, each rotatable by 360 degrees, allow for rapidly changing interior designs. For events or lectures, the panels discreetly disappear into a niche in one tower, while a mobile, space-saving pantry emerges from the opposite tower. The pavilion's construction is equally optimized and entirely reversible, with a high degree of prefabrication allowing for an assembly time of just six weeks.

Awards

Architecture Prize of the BDA-Ruhr

1994

Architecture Prize of the WestHyp Foundation

1994

Architecture Prize of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia

1995

German Steel Construction Award

1996

Data

Completion

1994

Address

In d. Welheimer Mark 190 46238 Bottrop
Germany

Client

Emschergenossenschaft, Bottrop

Dance School “S”

Gelsenkirchen

At the start of the planning process, the site was already 100 percent built over. In a desolate block between the pedestrian zone and the market square, a supermarket occupied the entire ground floor area. Since the continuous operation of the supermarket could not be disrupted, even temporarily limited interventions were not allowed. Additionally, the existing structure was not really suitable for accommodating another floor, and various ventilation systems and skylights on its flat roof had to be preserved.

On the other hand, the dance school posed an acoustic problem, which, given the precarious structural conditions, could not be mitigated in the usual way by adding mass to the building. While the function called for a heavy structure, the situation required exactly the opposite—a very lightweight building. Therefore, we opted for a modular steel construction made of beams and frames, which now cantilevers two and a half meters over the non-load-bearing wooden structure of the supermarket in the area of the dance room.

The anchoring of the frames in the adjacent old building, which left all the roof installations untouched, now also prevents direct sound transmission with the hollow space underneath. However, since the central support could only bear 64 percent of the total load, while the outer supports still had reserves, the central support had to be lowered by 4.9 centimeters. Only during the course of the construction progress was the main beam allowed to gradually bend, transferring more of its load to the outer supports.

Additionally, both the heating system and the ventilation systems had to be installed in a space-saving manner, separated from the dance school's operational area and accommodated in the narrow courtyard. The structure also had to be protected from the vibrations of the dance floor. This led to the solution of adding a technical tower to the single-story dance hall. Positioned between the neighboring firewalls, the tower, with its streamlined cladding of corrugated aluminum and the dynamic appearance of a racing car, draws the attention of passersby into the interior of the block, initiating a transition from the extroversion of the body to the staged introversion of the spatial structure.

Steel

Data

Completion

1992

Address

Gelsenkirchen
Germany

Client

Private

Allopro – Medical technology and laboratory building

Gelsenkirchen

At HQ Allopro, a subsidiary of the Swiss company Sulzer AG, administration, seminar rooms, exhibition space, foyer, storage, and an apartment were all brought together under one roof. This is a business concept aimed at maximizing employee identification with the company. Similarly, the building reflects an optimized use of resources such as material, energy, and manpower.

Its structure is both simple and complex. The elongated, two-story cubature with maximum volume and minimized surface area is oriented with its broad sides facing north and south. A central space serves simultaneously as an access, communication, and relaxation area. All extensively used rooms (e.g., seminar rooms) are located on the north side, behind a highly insulated thermal buffer with few openings, while all intensively used office areas are on the south side. A shading shed roof is positioned as an independent element on a minimized and clearly legible structure, featuring flat ceilings without beams, integrated mushroom head connections, and extremely slender round concrete columns. These reduce the overall cubature, thereby lowering the required energy input and thus the operating costs.

In summer, wide roof overhangs, sunshades, and efficient cross ventilation protect the building from overheating. Its cooling load is further reduced by a ventilated cold roof, which opens up to the south with its massive, sloped concrete surface. All surface water is directed into ponds via a strip of intensively greened flat roof. The delayed evaporation improves the microclimate in summer. In winter, the low-angled sun penetrates deep into the office and living spaces through skylights on the south side, converting to short-wave radiation, stored in the building's massive interior elements, and releasing the heat into the room air with a time delay. Delicate steel suspensions, bridges, and staircases evoke the industrial tradition of the Ruhr region. They extend into the outdoor space and play with the spaces in between.

Hybrid