OLE SCHEEREN AMONG THE WINNERS OF THE NEW MEDIA CAMPUS FOR AXEL SPRINGER

German architect Ole Scheeren has been selected as one of the winners of the architecture competition for the future media campus of Axel Springer SE, one of Germany’s most influential and dynamic media enterprises, next to Rem Koolhaas/OMA, Bjarke Ingels/BIG.

Ole Scheeren’s design for the 60,000 square meter complex in Berlin presents a contemporary counterpart to the historic Axel Springer Tower and an expressive vision for a new collaborative space and identity for the digital media company. The architecture reflects the symbolic resonance with the city’s urban context.

The historically charged site is located along the edge of the former Berlin Wall, which once divided the city and the world, directly opposite the existing Axel Springer Tower, then rising defiantly above the Wall. At the core of the new building floats an urban-scale void, establishing a visual axis between former East and West and conceptually reuniting the two sides. The building emerges as a symbol of transparency and historic awareness.

A “Collaborative Cloud” forms the heart and nucleus of the building and manifests itself as the conceptual and spatial identity of the new headquarters. Identity is defined not as an object, but as space – a physical void is carved to create flexible permeable places for imagination, collaboration, and interaction. Standardized flexible work spaces are arranged along the perimeter of the facetted building envelope, which dissolve and merge into zones of informal work environments within the Cloud.

“In an age where digital work can be performed anywhere, architecture takes on the critical role of bringing people together”, says Ole Scheeren. “The Collaborative Cloud not only forms an actual space of shared ideas and social interaction, but also projects its open image as a powerful gesture towards the city, reuniting a multiplicity of enterprises in a space of shared digital identity.” A diverse array of urban activities and amenities invite inhabitation and interaction with the city and surrounding public domain.

The ground levels of the building form a civic base, a market-place like environment for gatherings, and a partly sunken concrete-scape offers a multi-level surface for exhibitions, film screenings and ad-hoc urban activities. A public “passage”, one of Berlin’s ubiquitous typologies, traverses the building and connects the two surrounding public plazas. An extensive garden covers the plinth level and embraces the building, while a rooftop space provides a special area for events, with an outdoor terrace offering views across the city of Berlin.

Besides a series of new projects in Europe and the United States, Büro Ole Scheeren’s international portfolio includes a range of city-defining structures and cultural projects currently under construction, including the headquarters for China’s oldest art auction house near the Forbidden City in Beijing; Angkasa Raya, a 268 meter tall building of floating rectangular volumes in the heart of Kuala Lumpur; DUO, a large-scale mixed-use development recently launched in Singapore; and Mahanakhon, soon to be Bangkok’s tallest skyscraper.

OMA AMONG THE WINNERS OF THE NEW MEDIA CAMPUS FOR AXEL SPRINGER

OMA has been announced as a finalist in the competition to design Axel Springer's new Media Campus in Berlin. 

Springer has launched a corporate move from "print" to "digital media" - in which our building will act both as a symbol and a tool; a palace to lure the elite of (Germany's) digital Bohemia to its compound in Berlin.

The genius of print is that it is a cheap, physical, hyper-accessible embodiment of a complex collective effort, for which so far the digital has been unable to find an equivalent. Architectural offices are similar to newspapers in that they produce complex assemblies and selections from radically different sources of information.

As architects, we have experienced the advantages: speed, precision, smoothness. But we have also suffered one crucial consequence: the relationship between the worker and his computer, which isolates him in a bubble of introverted performance, inaccessible to collective overview.

In the classical newsroom, dominated by smoking, typing journalists, each inhabitant was aware of the labour and progress of his colleagues and of the collective aim: a single issue, with the deadline as a simultaneous release. In the digital office, staring intently at a screen dampens all other forms of attention and therefore undermines the collective intelligence necessary for true innovation.

We therefore propose a building that lavishly broadcasts the work of individuals for shared analysis. The new office block is injected with a central atrium that opens up to the existing Springer buildings - a new center of the Springer campus.

The essence of our proposal is a series of terraced floors that together form a digital valley. Each floor contains a covered part as a traditional work environment, which is then uncovered on the terraces. Halfway through the building, the valley is mirrored to generate a three dimensional canopy.

The public can experience the building on three levels - ground floor lobby, meeting bridge, and roof-top bar. The meeting bridge is a viewing platform from which the visitors can witness the daily functioning of the company and how it evolves.

The common space formed by the interconnected terraces offers an alternative to the formal office space in the solid part of the building, allowing for an unprecedented expansion of the vocabulary of workspaces: a building that can absorb all the question marks of the digital future.

BIG AMONG THE WINNERS OF THE NEW MEDIA CAMPUS FOR AXEL SPRINGER

BIG has been announced, along with Buro-OS and OMA, as one of the winners for the new 69,000m2 media HQ for the international publishing house Axel Springer in Berlin, Germany. Like a three dimensional neighborhood the building will unite the activities of Axel Springer Campus with the public life of the city.

 

Located on the historic site of the former Berlin Wall, the new addition to the Axel Springer’s headquarters brings together a new array of media subsidiaries. The building breathes new life into one of the last remaining building plots of the former no-man’s land, and unifies the diverse surroundings into a new vibrant urban center.

Bjarke Ingels: “We propose a building that creates the optimum conditions for encounters and exchanges between the various groups of users. Like a three dimensional neighborhood, the building will bring together digital and traditional media brands, start-ups and established firms, entrepreneurs and employees, and unite the activities of Axel Springer Campus with the public life of the city.”

The existing Axel Springer buildings embody two well-known typologies that have dominated Berlin’s urban development of the last half century. An understated perimeter block of office buildings that face into their own interior courtyards that was complemented by a tower standing out in its urban context creating a public square at its base.

BIG conceptually unites the qualities of these two building typologies – the intimate nature of the courtyard and the efficiency of the tower – to create a new identity for the Media Campus. The Campus’ main feature is an upward spiral of terraces and stairs that move from the ground floor to connect the courtyard to the sky.

The street trees continue in planters on the terraces, providing access to green spaces from all floors in the building and magnificent views for both the staff as well as the public. The façades of the public and semi-public areas are kept as transparent as possible to provide maximum visual connection from the interior to the surrounding city.

The new Campus will be a testament of the future of Axel Springer and solidify its place in the media industry. BIG’s organization of office programs will stimulate interdisciplinary exchanges across professional boundaries. A free and flexible floor plan allows for the gathering of people from multiple fields as well as serendipitous meetings.

Like a diagonal short-circuit in the horizontal layers of offices, the spiraling interior becomes a literal landscape for work and exchange of ideas. All floors are connected to the courtyard, terraces or roof garden so that every workspace is steps away from ample daylight and fresh air – natural ingredients for a creative workspace.

The public is invited to see all entries from December 17 until December 22 in the exhibition “A call for ideas – the new Axel Springer Campus in Berlin” at the German Architecture Centre (DAZ) in Berlin.

Location: Berlin, Germany

Architect: BIG

Partners-in-Charge: Bjarke Ingels, Andreas Klok Pedersen

Associate-in-Charge: André Schmidt 

Project Leader: Lucian Racovitan, Hanna Johansson

Project Team: Aaron Hales, Alek Wadas, Alexander Ejsing, Alexandra Lukianova, Horia Spirescu, Jonathan Quaade, Junjie Yan, Kasper Reimar Hansen, Laura Wätte, Martin Maria Beck, Mathias Bank, Mikolai Adamus, Nicolas Milot, Oscar Wilhelm Abrahamsson

Engineering: Bollinger+Grohmann 

Landscape: Man Made Land  + Topotek 1 

Lighting: Kardoff Ingenieure 

Cost consultant: Wenzel + Wenzel

Size: 69,000 m2

Year: 2013

Competition Client: Axel Springer AG

HENNING LARSEN ARCHITECTS WINS CITIZEN AND MEDIA CENTRE COMPETITION

HenningLarsen Architects has won the competition for a new Citizen and Media Centre in Stuttgart. The new building is prominently located in Stuttgart’s Castle Park and will form a distinctive entrance to the listed parliament building in Baden-Württemberg. The parliament attracts 65,000 visitors each year, and the new building will provide access to exhibitions and press conferences.

The Centre’s entrance is shaped like a large amphitheater, and is recessed in the ground. The round shape creates an agora in the centre, ideal for political meetings and public cultural events alike. The shape stands as an emblem of the democratic process: in ancient Greece the agora formed the centre of political and public life, as a scene for debates, meetings and temporary theatre.

“The project exemplifies how architecture can create settings for democratic processes. Visitors will have improved access to the parliament building and at the same time, the new structure will host public meetings and cultural events” says Werner Frosch, manager of the Munich office of Henning Larsen Architects.

The new centre consists of a foyer, conference spaces and a exhibition area, all visually connected to the outside agora. For security purposes, these areas can be closed off from the parliament building itself. This separation also makes it possible to host larger events at late hours, without compromising the parliament building.

The new Citizen and Media Centre is located in Stuttgart Castle Park and creates a new public space within the urban park. The surrounding landscape and ample daylight have provided inspiration for the design of the new building. Special cylindrical windows create a bright and friendly atmosphere, and filter the daylight, giving visitors the impression of walking under a big tree.

OMA WINS AXEL SPRINGER'S NEW MEDIA CENTRE COMPETITION

OMA's design for Axel Springer's new media centre in Berlin has been chosen as the winner in the final round of a public design competition. (see project)

The building will embody Axel Springer's corporate shift from print to digital media, and will create a new hub in the existing Axel Springer campus in central Berlin. Mathias Döpfner, CEO of Axel Springer: "We are very happy to be able to build the new building of our publishing house together with Rem Koolhaas. He presented the conceptually and esthetically most radical model. The fundamental innovation of working environments will support the cultural transformation towards a digital publishing house."

Rem Koolhaas, founding partner of OMA: "It is a wonderful occasion for our office to build in Berlin again, on this historical site of all places, for a client who has mobilized architecture to help perform a radical change…a workplace in all its dimensions…"Opposite the existing Axel Springer headquarters on Zimmerstrasse, a street which previously bisected East and West Berlin, the building will be situated at one of the city's most significant and central locations.