Description

The name Braun has stood for first-class design as well as high-quality radios since the 1920s, not just since the first, legendary music centre built in 1956 [referred to in German as the “Schneewittchensarg,” Snow White’s Coffin]. A subsidiary of the Gillette Corporation, the formerly family-run company markets primarily household appliances.

The artless three-storey glass cube with its geometrical severity follows the classic tradition of modern architecture. Minimalism and the unobtrusive treatment of materials set the tone for the building’s exterior. Mini­ma­lism prevails throughout, right down to the detailing in the development of the edge of the roof, in the profile- less outer envelope and in the raw concrete cores.

A wide roof canopy and large span floor slabs complete the body of the building, transforming it into a rectangle. Inside, a view of the atrium opens up, offices flanking it on three sides; it is from this three-storey space lighted from above that the building is accessed. The entrance to the offices is either via a ramp leading along a backlit glass wall with integrated display cases presenting the company’s products, or via the free-standing glass-walled lift. The ramp and the lift form a straight line that is continued by a long, narrow pool of water and ends with a tree. This linear arrangement of elements intensifies the longitudinal effect of the atrium.

The staff at headquarters carry out the usual tasks related to purchasing, marketing, finance and human resources. These involve a lot of routine work or concentrated attention on the part of an individual. In consequence, the U-shaped ground plan incorporates a mixture of open-plan and combi-offices. In the combi-office zones, white wall-to-wall, floor-to-ceiling cupboards separate the private offices, while extensive glazing with narrow black profiles creates a visual connection to the communal middle zone. With its temporary workplaces, kitchens and storage surfaces, this middle zone provides space for chance encounters, encourages spontaneous communication and counteracts worker isolation. In the open-plan offices, the workplaces are dispersed over the space or gathered into small groups by means of floor-to-ceiling cupboard units arranged to form niches. Each department is allocated rooms for smaller meetings, while for larger gatherings, staff reserve one of the rooms in the centrally-situated conference area. The interior walls of plain glass, the unobtrusive choice of colours and materials and not least, the solid ceilings throughout generate cleanly designed interiors.

In addition to their aesthetic value, the exposed solid ceilings are an important component of the air conditioning system and include an embedded network of water carrying capillary tubes to heat and cool the rooms. In order to meet individual needs, the system is subdivided in accordance with the building segment and the direction it faces, into zones that can be heated or cooled to varying degrees. This low-temperature-based heating system was possible because of the good insulation properties of the double shell façade, which is both functionally and aesthetically unconventional. In order to minimise heat loss and maximise the use of solar energy, the outer layer of the façade, controlled by sensors, reacts optimally to light, temperature and precipitation. The changes in seasons and times of day are reflected by the opening and closing of the storey-height glass panes on the façade. Time becomes a decorative element. The internal façade is rhythmised by the alternation from large-format, fixed-glazed elements to narrow, heat-insulated opening flaps, which the staff operate manually. The narrow inner shell flaps, each of which are equipped only with a handle and insulating seals instead of conventional window fittings, are remarkably easy to operate. When a narrow flap is opened, the linked outer shell flap mimics the movement. Due to horizontal and vertical separators in the space between the internal and external façades, the façade consists, both structurally and with respect to ventilation technology, of an additional outer layer of windows.

For the offices facing the atrium, the volume of the unheated hall takes up the function of the second façade layer. The roof of the hall consists of steel-framed glass cushions of air. Depending on the time of year and the air quality, the roof is either completely opened or closed, and the atrium is either the outdoors or a buffer zone. Fresh air, cooled or heated by thermal tunnels, provides for comfortable temperatures in the hall, even when external temperatures are extreme.

The Braun products, uniting functionality and design, find their counterpart in the company’s new German headquarters on the Kronberg site.

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Originally published in: Rainer Hascher, Simone Jeska, Birgit Klauck, Office Buildings: A Design Manual, Birkhäuser, 2002.