Description

Bavaria’s third largest city, Augsburg, began tackling the issue of the rapidly increasing volume of waste, recycling and restructuring in 2012. The city announced competitions for three new depots to sensibly redistribute the waste handling in the city and replace four existing, too small or outdated depots. The competition aimed to find ways in which to sustainably modernise the facilities while also combining the functions of recycling and street cleaning in a single depot. The new building in Augsburg-Oberhausen designed by Knerer und Lang Architekten and completed in 2017, shows that this supposedly mundane design task can still produce distinctive contemporary architecture and make a valuable contribution to urban development.

To provide the required functional spaces, Knerer and Lang decided on a long U-shaped sculptural figure. The new building wraps itself around three sides of the 11,000 m² site to form an elongated courtyard in the middle. The various uses – administration, social rooms, vehicle sheds, warehouses, salt storage and container parking spaces – were placed one behind the other and are, for the most part located beneath the same long single-storey roof. Due to the different height requirements of the spaces, the architects folded the partly greened roof so that it undulates over the building to form a sculptural landscape. Originally, the building was to be constructed entirely in wood but after taking into account the building’s heavy exposure to moisture in the car wash facilities, salt deposits and the impact forces of heavy equipment, the architects returned to the drawing board (which is permitted as part of the VOF tendering procedure) and redesigned the building to use a mix of in-situ cast concrete and precast concrete elements.

Driving into the depot is like stepping onto a stage. Every customer bringing their rubbish becomes an extra in a busy stage production, acting out scenes against a backdrop of blue walls and a grey floor, while the main protagonists and their vehicles are decked out in orange costumes. The grey wooden strips of the outer façade give way to bright blue trapezoidal metal sheeting that can be sprayed clean with water. The architects had previously used this same “Olympic Blue” (derived from Otl Aicher’s iconic colour concept) in their design for the modernisation of the student residences in the Olympic Village in Munich. In combination with the signal orange colour of the worker’s clothes, and the brightly coloured fleet of vehicles and containers, the complex recalls a Roy Lichtenstein pop art. The colourful contrast also serves as orientation on the site: various large doors, gates, garages or open storage hangars are clearly legible through set back reveals in the steel façade. A varying overhang creates the impression of a dynamic, snaking roof line as if the roof were movable.

At the heart of the depot is a huge salt store, which is located at the rear of the complex where the road cleaning department is located at the bottom of the U-shape. Between two large vehicle sheds, the building rises towards the west, ending at its highest point with a clearance of nine metres. The warehouse extends over the entire transverse side and offers sufficient space for storing road salt and chippings within in a hanger constructed of a combination of concrete walls and wooden formwork. The manoeuvring of the articulated lorries, on the other hand, is precision work. The architects paid particular attention to the office spaces and social rooms, working in close cooperation with the users. A spacious, bright lounge with adjoining kitchen faces south on the ground floor next to the admin wing. On the upper floor are white plastered, solidly equipped meeting, changing and sports rooms as well as offices. A rest room facing the courtyard provides sufficient space to relax during breaks.

Originally published in Bauwelt 07.2018, pp. 44-49, abridged and edited for Building Types online, translated by Julian Reisenberger

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