Winterhuder Werkstätten

Competition, Hamburg, Germany, 2010

INTENTION

The Winterhuder Werkstätten (Workshops) are located in the surrounding of small-scale building structures, mostly single-family houses and allotment estates. The terrain slopes slightly down. The WW institution embodies integration and communication. This issue is taken up by the chosen construction type, so that the building can be seen as part of the surrounding rural formation. The predominating traditional roofscape existing presents the joining element in this connection. The workshops adopt those motives in their own roof structures, allowing the huge superstructure of almost 3000 m3 to conjoin the appearing smaller scale. Many small houses crowd together, figuring a village centre and providing an ample room bathed in light for lounging or working onits inside.

The primary rooms of the functional centre are arranged in form of an abstract four-winged windmill. The staff accesses the western “slow” corridor and the dressing rooms,which are installed in 4 detached cubes. Due to the three-stranded organization, the corridor area stays free of the high-bay store’s supply transportation. All workshops are accessed directly via this same corridor. An additional linkage for the flow of goods is provided by a “rapid” eastern corridor. The two-storied high-bay store is supplied over the lower plaza.

Through its materiality, the building structure is clearly differentiated in basement and rooftop. The façade’s lower part gradually emerges from the bumpy terrain, standing its ground in the setting, becoming thus the steely fundament for our workshops. The wooden roofscape, which develops over the attic into the panelling, relates explicitly to that building structure. The roofscape’s high points are emphasized by fanlights in order to provide the building’s great appearance abundantly with light. The design of the open space takes up the terrain’s existing tree population. The attached surfaces, serving both for access and lounging in the open, align with the new building’s form, embedding it into the existing sphere. A multiplex area, consisting of vegetative and mounted areas, that gives this “small campus” a distinguished face in between the natural area of the east and the urban fields of the west, is created. (Architectural competition 2009)