Technical Departments at Graz Technical University, Inffeldgasse 25 thumbnail 3 ©Photo: Paul Ott
Technical Departments at Graz Technical University, Inffeldgasse 25 thumbnail 6 ©Photo: Paul Ott
Technical Departments at Graz Technical University, Inffeldgasse 25 thumbnail 4 Upper Floor

Works #793

Technical Departments at Graz Technical University, Inffeldgasse 25Realized

Ernst Giselbrecht + Partner Architektur ZT GmbH

Ernst Giselbrecht + Partner Architektur ZT GmbH

Technical Departments at Graz Technical University, Inffeldgasse 25 thumbnail 1 ©Photo: Paul Ott
Technical Departments at Graz Technical University, Inffeldgasse 25 thumbnail 2 ©Photo: Paul Ott
Technical Departments at Graz Technical University, Inffeldgasse 25 thumbnail 3 ©Photo: Paul Ott
Technical Departments at Graz Technical University, Inffeldgasse 25 thumbnail 4 Upper Floor
Technical Departments at Graz Technical University, Inffeldgasse 25 thumbnail 5 ©Photo: Paul Ott
Technical Departments at Graz Technical University, Inffeldgasse 25 thumbnail 6 ©Photo: Paul Ott
Ernst Giselbrecht + Partner Architektur ZT GmbH

Ernst Giselbrecht + Partner Architektur ZT GmbH

Location Graz, Styria, Austria
Year 2020
Categories Architectural Design  >  School/Education facilities

Description

The laboratory building of the Graz University of Technology received the first price of the International DOMICO Architecture Award DOMIGIUS 2021.

The entire complex of mechanical engineering institutes, built in the 1970s, is about 230 meters long and consists of different types of buildings. With irregular cube shapes and unequal building heights, they form the internal institute area. They also divide the exterior space into diverse open spaces and usage zones. Towards Inffeldgasse, a one-storey wing with student drawing rooms and seminar rooms closes the complex homogeneously in terms of urban development. Following these low-rise buildings, five office towers take up the straight lines. At their rear, a building conglomerate of lecture halls and different areas of use adjoins, with access zones and landscaped inner courtyards between them.

The cubic two- to four-story office towers rest on concrete stilts above the one-story perimeter buildings. With horizontally articulated perforated facades, they display the precast concrete structure of the 1970s and are each accessed by an external stairwell. With its visually independent, almost windowless vertical exposed concrete cube, the stair tower takes away some of the material weight of the closely neighboring office cube and thus visually emphasizes the floating effect of the elevated building.

From this structural situation, the planning of the urgently needed expansion and upgrading of premises and, in parallel, the conception of extensive renovation measures will take place from 2015. In order to counteract a "shakeout" caused by ever new small-scale additions and extensions, the upcoming project is intended to provide security in terms of space requirements in the longer term. The expansion areas for the institute's operations will be created by partially building over courtyard areas, supplementary head buildings and by raising all office cubes to four stories.

To minimize structural issues, the office towers will be raised using lightweight construction. The courtyard and head buildings follow a uniform functional structure. Building services supply and disposal facilities as well as small laboratories and storage rooms are located in the basement. The ground floors are reserved for larger laboratories, workshops and test stands - also for traffic reasons. Offices and rooms for student use are located on the upper floors. In principle, the construction work will be carried out during ongoing operations. In order to ensure that teaching and research operations can continue as smoothly as possible, the existing access structures will be retained. However, the elevators will be replaced by new, larger elevators that will be attached to the side of the existing stairwells. This measure guarantees barrier-free access to the entire institute complex.

The design concept aims to respect the former architectural concept in principle, but to give the existing building composition a visually orderly structure through a sensitive modulation of its facade surfaces. The now uniform height of the five office towers results in a rhythmic spatial sequence that gives the visible street frontage a stringent contour in length, depth and height.

With particular finesse, the office towers have metamorphosed into a completely new plasticity. Their almost ethereal architectural language shakes off any material heaviness and design staleness and, incidentally, cleverly uses the material massiveness of the stairwell cubes, which are left in exposed concrete, as an element to intensify the visual contrast.

Thanks to the flexibility of the load-bearing structure, it was possible to band the window fronts. In vertical time with the combined spandrel and head cladding, this combination creates a horizontally layered sequence in the facade, which already in its two-dimensionality associates the ideal body of a cube. A surprise effect of its own is created by the staggering of the facade in layering and depth, which enhances the overall filigree effect. This effect is achieved by cantilevered translucent shading elements that run in counter-rotating succession in a wedge shape across the entire width of the façade and also around the corners of the building. They cast delicate, also wedge-shaped, shadows on the white facade surfaces.

The DOMICO Planum 27 Series façade, which is fixed without penetration, ensures that different structural substrates as well as large dimensional tolerances are bridged with maximum precision. Precisely planned and accurately executed fine horizontal joints result in a two-dimensional effect of the horizontally lined up facade fields. By means of the strikingly wide vertical joints, a parallel structured facade division is created. Moreover, the supporting elements of the shading elements, some of which also serve as maintenance walkways, disappear almost invisibly into these joints.

(Text: DI Karl Cerenko)


Tags