Timber-hybrid structure with composite floor slabs
German Biomass Research Centre Leipzig by Schulz und Schulz
© Gustav Willeit
The administration building and pilot plant hall built by Schulz und Schulz on the periphery of Leipzig incorporates a considerable amount of timber – a fitting choice, as the buildings’ user is concerned with investigating the possibilities of biomass utilisation in Germany. The two-part new ensemble at Torgauer Road forms the heart of the German Biomass Research Centre, where some 180 employees are concerned with the role that renewable resources can play in supplying Germany with energy and materials.
© Gustav Willeit
The architects have sited the five-storey office and seminar building at the side of the road. While the ground floor is built of reinforced concrete, the upper storeys are formed of load-bearing timber frame walls, facade supports in glued laminated timber and composite timber and concrete floor slabs. Stiffening staircase and elevators cores in reinforced concrete are the sole exception in this use of wood.
The pilot plant building, considerably larger at a length of 111 m but having only one storey, is set to the southeast and connected to the administration building by a walkway canopy. Inside it contains a number of test halls and laboratories.
© Gustav Willeit
Back-ventilated cover strip cladding in black painted spruce characterises the new ensemble. Aluminium-faced window sills that continue at the sides into cornice lines that provide the administration building horizontal articulation. The timber used in the construction of the ensemble is also frequently encountered in the interiors, in particular on the ceilings, executed in glued laminated spruce 20 cm thick beneath an 8 cm layer of site-placed concrete.
© Gustav Willeit
© Gustav Willeit
The architects also used spruce for the lamella-style ceilings and wall panelling of the rooms. Even the timber frame facade on the ground floor of the administration building has wood profiles with aluminium trim capping. The facade profiles on the glazed sections of the pilot plant on the other hand are executed in unpainted galvanised steel.
© Gustav Willeit
The ensemble meets its heat requirements to a certain extent with biomass. In the basement of the pilot plant, a heating centre with a gas-fired boiler and a combined heat and power unit running on wood chips supplies heat to both buildings. Heat stemming from a solar thermal energy system and research installations such as boiler and engine test benches is also used, but not included in the building’s computed heat balance.
Architecture: Schulz und Schulz Architekten
Client: Federal Republic of Germany, represented by Staatsbetrieb Sächsisches Immobilien- und Baumanagement (SIB), Leipzig Branch I
Location: Torgauer Straße 116, 04347 Leipzig (DE)
Structural engineering: Mathes Beratende Ingenieure
Building services engineering: MLT Medien Licht Technik Ingenieure
Gallery
These articles might also interest you
-
Prefabricated modular timber construction
Luisenblock Office Building by Sauerbruch Hutton
Sauerbruch Hutton Architects has erected an office building involving the modular timber construction method for the German Bundestag.
-
Timber construction premiere in Gothenburg
Nodi Office Building by White Arkitekter
The Nodi office building by White Arkitekter, the first constructed in wood in Gothenburg, demonstrates both the climatic and visual merits of the natural material.
-
Of flax fibre and bio-resin
Smart Circular Bridge in Almere
In Germany and the Netherlands, an international consortium is working on three footbridges composed of flax fibre and resin from plant-based and synthetic materials. The first bridge has now been completed in Almere.