COMPETITION ORGANISER
MAGISTRACY, CITY OF GIESSEN

LOCATION
CITY OF GIESSEN

PROJECT TYPE
MONUMENT REFURBISHMENT AND NEW BUILDING

CONSTRUCTION COSTS, COST GROUPS 200 – 800
EUR 6,000,000.00

PERFORMANCE
PERFORMANCE STAGES 1–9

COMPETITION
1^ST PRIZE, IMPLEMENTATION COMPETITION

Especially in Giessen, where so few historical buildings have survived, it is hardly possible to find an appropriate location to communicate urban history: based on the relics of Giessen Castle, known as the Wasserburg, which forms the nucleus of the city, the two houses on Kirchenplatz represent different temporal layers – including one of the oldest half-timber houses in Hesse. Major measures and undermining extensions only weaken the concise nature of this unique ensemble.

The key architectural prerequisite for a pleasant museum experience is a connection between the two buildings, thereby enhancing their inviting character and enabling a coherent interior museum tour. The inserted, well-lit staircase guides visitors to all levels and makes the historical architecture and the exhibition very tangible. Although the finely-structured, transparent extension is clearly recognisable as a contemporary structure, it merges with the existing structures to form a homogeneous unity through its references to the identity-strengthening architecture. The enlarged entrance opening highlights the museum’s self-perception as a publicly open facility.

CLIENT
CITY OF LICHTENFELS

LOCATION
LICHTENFELS

PROJECT TYPE
CONVERSION AND NEW BUILDING

PERFORMANCE
PERFORMANCE STAGES 1 – 9

CONSTRUCTION COSTS KG 200 – 800
EUR 5,500,000.00 

GFA
1,840 M²

NFA
1,240 M²

The new city library consists of three volumes: the historical building on the market square, the reading room and a rear-courtyard building. Its organisation in elongated wings picks up on the urban structure, providing a height-development that conforms to the situation.

The reading room is developed without any spatial partition, out of the joint counter that can be locked using a mobile wall outside opening hours. It is structured by a wall of books, its lower section partitioning the library’s auxiliary functions on the ground floor. Its upper section separates the library’s quieter zones from the more lively reading steps.

The three floors of the rear-courtyard building accommodate reading desks, workplaces and the various departments with auxiliary functions. The floors are connected by free-standing stairs. The rooftop terrace on the reading room is designed as a spacious rooftop garden with seating; it is available both to users and to library employees, as well as passers by, serving as a peaceful retreat in the city centre.

CONSTRUCTION 2020 – 2024

CLIENT
LANDESBETRIEB VERMÖGEN UND BAU BADEN WÜRTTEMBERG

LOCATION
CENTRE FOR ISLAMIC THEOLOGY, UNIVERSITY OF TÜBINGEN (D)

MATERIALS
FABRIC, ARTIFICIAL STONE, MIRRORS

MEASUREMENTS
1 X 1 X 7 M

IMPLEMENTATION COSTS
EUR 90,000.00

At the University of Tübingen’s Centre for Islamic Theology the KISWA PERISCOPE will provide a location where science and faith can be combined, allowing the themes of  covering and revealing to coexist.

A strip of obsolete Kiswa, the material of the holy Kaaba from Mecca, is presented in the library. A periscope stele in the library’s inner courtyard allows the textile and also the library activities in front of it to be observed from the plateau.

The project is currently being implemented and is due to be completed in 2022.

CLIENT
KLASSIK STIFTUNG WEIMAR (DE)

LOCATION
BAUERBACH, THURINGIA (DE)

PROJECT TYPE
MUSEUM AND MONUMENT PRESERVATION

PERFORMANCE
PERFORMANCE STAGES 1 – 9

CONSTRUCTION COSTS, COST GROUPS 300 – 400
EUR 750,000.00

GFA
235 M²

GROSS VOLUME
577 M³

The memorial location for Friedrich Schiller, who sought asylum there in 1782-1783 while fleeing from Stuttgart, was to be rediscovered with an architectural concept. 

The existing division between auxiliary and exhibiting uses had to be overcome by means of a harmonious overall spatial situation. The findings of restoration and building-historical investigations were meagre, especially for the important period of the poet’s residence there. In addition to preservation and museological measures, extensive structural strengthening measures and architectural decisions had to be taken, above all with respect to recreating the exterior plaster, which had been previously removed, as well as the furnishing for the visitor areas. 

CLIENT
FÖRDERVEREIN SCHLOSS BEDHEIM

LOCATION
BEDHEIM CASTLE, BEDHEIM

PROJECT TYPE
NEW BUILDING

CONSTRUCTION COSTS, COST GROUPS 200 – 800
EUR 300,000.00

FUNDING
IBA-THÜRINGEN
THURINGIA MINISTRY OF INFRASTRUCTURE AND AGRICULTURE

GFA
400 M²

USABLE SPACE 
204 M²

PERFORMANCE
PERFORMANCE STAGES 1 – 9

Bedheim Castle is participating in the International Building Exhibition Thüringen. One of its first implemented projects is the “New Shed” (Neue Remise) in the agricultural yard of the castle facility. With this wooden building, the architects and client demonstrate how simple means and the self-construction of most elements can achieve architectural quality in rural areas.

The elongated volume fills an important gap in the preservation-listed ensemble. The outwardly dark, reserved building surprises with very bright, original interior spaces. Building measures largely did without purchased building elements, as even the windows were constructed by the project participants. The measure demonstrates the advantages of timber construction and formulates a counter-position to the technological, highly automated wooden building currently propagated elsewhere. The uses of the Neue Remise are similar to those in an alpine lodge, just without the mountains. In addition to sleeping quarters and a guest room, there is a spacious kitchen, which also doubles as a common room or even an exhibition space. Sanitary facilities and storage space for the garden café supplement the programme.

The new building, which was completed in 2018, thereby assumes a key role at this complex location, since it has a leverage effect: it achieves many things that were hitherto unfeasible, all in a simpler, warmer, more economical and ecological manner.

CLIENT
WOHNBAU STADT COBURG

LOCATION
COBURG, WÜSTENAHORN DISTRICT

PROJECT TYPE
NEW BUILDING

PERFORMANCE
PERFORMANCE STAGES 1 – 6

CONSTRUCTION COSTS, COST GROUPS 300 – 400
EUR 2,000,000.00

GFA
670 M²

GROSS VOLUME
2,250 M³

The municipal building in the Coburg district of Wüstenahorn accommodates a large community hall, a café, a community administration office and seminar rooms.

The community centre presents itself as an inviting facility on the new square, with a large roof and a transparent ground floor.

The building’s typology is orientated towards the lake. In the classic manner of a waterfront pier or pavilion, the wooden building mediates between the bank and the water, and between Wüstenahorn and the Wolfgangsee. By referring to the lake rather than the surrounding residential buildings, it highlights its special role as a place for all the neighbourhood’s residents. The new community centre is integrated into the reed belt and becomes THE lakeside building.

The main level is dominated by the wooden-framed windows, upon which the slate-covered roof rests. End-grain parquet, robust fittings and furniture, and rough-sawn columns characterise the interior. The base level inserted into the slope and the interior core ensure the building’s structural rigidity.

CLIENT
CITY OF NEUSTADT B. COBURG

LOCATION
NEUSTADT B. COBURG

PROJECT TYPE
CONVERSION AND EXTENSION

PERFORMANCE
PERFORMANCE STAGES 1 – 9

CONSTRUCTION COSTS, COST GROUPS 300 – 400
EUR 3,500,000.00

GFA
1,847 M²

GROSS VOLUME
6,535 M³

From linear to multivalent
In several stages, our design for the kultur.werk.stadt. transformed the Patzschke printworks from a production-line building to a diverse, multivalent cultural centre. The new kultur.werk.stadt now consists of event and exhibition halls, the municipal cultural administration and archive, artist workshops, adult education rooms and a museum on the history of the inner-German border.

Architectural idea
Glass building-block walls divide the former printworks halls into different rooms and access areas. The historical editorial villa was refurbished in accordance with preservation regulations. An extension is developed out of the landscape of roofs, forming a forecourt that announces the ensemble’s new public significance.

CLIENT
CITY OF UMMERSTADT

LOCATION
MARKET SQUARE IN UMMERSTADT

PROJECT TYPE
CONVERSION AND REFURBISHMENT, PRESERVATION-COMPATIBLE RENOVATION

PERFORMANCE
PERFORMANCE STAGES 1 – 9

CONSTRUCTION COSTS, COST GROUPS 200 – 800
EUR 1,000,000.00

The former half-timber residential building and its auxiliary building are preservation-listed and situated at a prominent location on the corner of the Ummerstadt market square. The plot construction history reaches back to the 17^th century.

After years of vacancy, extensive safety measures were initially required. While the façade was largely reconstructed in accordance with its historical predecessor, the small-scale structure in the interior was adapted to accommodate new uses.

Markt 33 is an especially typical example of the existing structures’ revitalisation in the inner-urban setting, since it is itself a showcase project of the competence centre.
The facility includes exhibition and event rooms, as well as the office of the initiative and a small holiday apartment for cycle tourists.

The project was financially supported by urban-planning funding from the Thuringia State Monument and Archaeology Authority. It was completed in 5 construction stages between 2014 and 2018.

CLIENT
JENAKULTUR

LOCATION
VILLA ROSENTHAL IN JENA

MATERIAL
TAMPED CONCRETE, WOOD, STEEL 

PERFORMANCE
CONCEPT AND IMPLEMENTATION

CONSTRUCTION COSTS; COST GROUP
EUR 60,000.00

DIMENSIONS
5.5 M x 5.0 M x 3.8 M

Both a folly and a piece of contemporary art, the work “Dismissal of the Conquest of a View” does not quote any architectural typologies, such as a temple or cathedral, and instead refers to a view and therefore a form of landscape; its reference is not a historical object, but the mountain it faces.

The sculpture was constructed by StudioGründerKirfel itself together with students at the Bauhaus-Universität-Weimar.

Just as a city can be twinned with another city, the Villa Rosenthal also has a partner location: the fault called the Studentenrutsche situated in the Jena mountain range known as the Kernberge. A fault is a break in the stone, a geological disturbance that sets two rocky areas against each other. In the case of the Studentenrutsche, the terebratula zone (lower shell limestone) on the southern side was lowered by around 6 metres compared to the northern side. As a sign of the link between both locations, a walkable sculpture, a new folly, was erected in the garden of the Villa Rosenthal, its inner space providing a targeted view of the opposite Kernberge. The partnership is noticeable even before one enters the sculpture, since the exterior shell reflects a striking shell-lime structure of the opposite slope.

The approach attracts attention to the unique potential of the location, focusing on the cliff-top situation and thereby guiding the view into the distance.