-
Architects: KSG Architekten
- Area: 5143 m²
- Year: 2015
-
Photographs:Yohan Zerdoun
“The TGZ is a success story and has been one for almost 30 years. It is not just the City of Würzburg that benefits from the centre, but the entire Mainfranken region. It provides a home for young start-up companies, while the close connection to the university facilitates an intensive knowledge transfer. That is why we supported the new building with a 5-million subsidy,” explains Bavaria’s Minister of Economic Affairs, Ilse Aigner, during the inauguration of the new building on 11 March 2016. The TGZ provides ideal site conditions for innovative and technology-oriented company founders: on a floor area of about 2,200 m2 they can rent offices of various sizes and benefit from rooms, service, advice, and networks. That’s exactly why the flexibility of rooms and functional utilisation units as well as the modularity of the façade play an important role in the design. Following a VOF procedure, the work group consisting of kister scheithauer gross architekten und stadtplaner GmbH, Ingenieurgemeinschaft TEN and IDK Kleinjohann GmbH & Co. KG was awarded the contract in 2013.
The site in the newly developed “Campus Hubland Nord” is characterised by its prominent location as an entrance situation towards the urban district, and so the TGZ as one of the first buildings at this point is generating an identity for the entire quarter. The design by ksg proposed an L-shaped volume consisting of a main building accommodating offices and training rooms as well as a 600 m2 workshop. A mobile station with publicly accessible parking facilities adjoins at the southern site boundary. Between the mobile station and the workshop, an elevated level is laid out on the ground floor, which forms a large flight of stairs in the western part and creates a public square. A large opening in the elevated level affords perspectives and facilitates the natural ventilation of the car park in the basement. In the interior, the building impresses with a simple, pragmatic floor plan typology, which is bound to economic optimisation and maximum flexibility. A functional, symmetric circulation core ensures maximum flexibility for the uses on all levels. System partition walls allow diverse floor plan divisions. A meeting room with a glazed corner affords views to Würzburg’s city silhouette.
The modular façade on the east and west side with a 1.20-metre grid is composed of dark metal elements tilted towards the south, which allow a subsequent equipment with photovoltaic panels. The entire ground floor area is as a plinth covered with fibre-cement panels, thus design-wise merging the individual building components of the workshop and mobile station. “The TGZ is an important component, which is in terms of urban planning and design aspects more than just an innovation and start-up centre,” says the originator of the design, Johannes Kister.
