The winning design
by Xaveer de Geyter Architects, Topotek 1 Architektur, and Topotek 1 Landschaftsarchitekten (Brussels, Zurich & Berlin)
»Situated on the banks of the River Main, the new HfG building is intended to be a dense, urban campus in the former industrial harbor area. We took a holistic approach to designing the campus by considering urban-planning, architectural, and climatic aspects on different scales: at the level of the city, the campus, and the workshop. The new university building is intended to serve as a creative core in the transformation process of the city’s harbor district into a post-industrial role, and thus as the expression of the innovative and art-oriented district of the future.«
[ ] The volumes of the campus are defined by a series of subtractions: the garden, the cut-through, the building lines dictated by urban planning stipulations, a space for future expansion of the structure, and a series of smaller cut-out sections that perforate the long façades of the two four-story buildings. [ ] The campus is designed like a little town within the building: As an internal street, the gallery grants access to the different clusters and is also generously proportioned. The façades of the building ensembles form a patchwork of transparent, translucent, and opaque elements. [ ]
Spatial planning
Building concept
Open-space concept
Entrances and access roads
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