ECO-Towers and Office building for the building and environement authority (BSU), Hamburg (GER)

Honorable mention

(invited competition, 2009)

GFA: approx. 53.000 m2

The new office building for the building and environment authorities (BSU) will raise approx. 5km south to Hamburg‘s city center next to a highway and trainway, as well as, south to the planned landscape exhibition IGS for the year 2013.

The project provides several public areas next to office spaces for almost 1400 persons. The city model, an exhibition area, a restaurant and the traffic departement, the building permit department and a library are located on the groundfloor.

Especially with the citymodell, the exhibition area and the restaurant the new BSU building wants to interact with the neighborhood.

The accessibility to the building for the public and the creation of informal and communicative meeting points are the leitmotiv of this design.

All offices are naturally ventilated and have the same spatial qualities all over the building. Through extreme low primary energy needs (72% below EnEV 2007) the building obtains an excellent carbon footprint of only 18,9 kg CO2/m²a meaning a savings of more than 1.700 tons of CO2 per year in reference to a comparable standard office building.

As a visible sign for energy efficiency awareness of the building‘s owner the building recieves the european Green Building certificate tag. Furthermore, through the employment of ecological and recyclable building materials (renunciation of composite materials and especting eco-labels as the FSC, etc.) and the consideration of other aspects of interest the building aims for the Gold certificate from the German Sustainable Building Council (DGNB).

The DGNB certification analyses the building through three key sustainability aspects: Life-cycle cost analysis, ecology and social-cultural analysis and thermal, acoustical and visual comfort analysis.