COBE has released photographs of its new building for Adidas' new headquarters in the southern German town of Herzogenaurach, Germany. 

The new building, encompassing a total of 15,500-square-metre area, features a giant rhomboid roof, covering the entire building like a carpet, bringing staff, visitors and brand ambassadors together and thus enabling more and wider contacts.

Named Halftime Building, the building forms part of adidas' corporate headquarters, "World of Sports", in Germany. In addition to a canteen for all HQ employees, the building contains meeting rooms, a conference center and a showroom where the company’s high-profile brand ambassadors can stop by to see the latest designs, collections and ideas.

COBE won the competition to design the headquarters in 2014 and the Halftime Building was completed in 2018. To accommodate the many internal and public functions that Halftime includes, the building is designed as a versatile, multi-purpose building that brings as many of the company’s activities and functions as possible together under one roof. 

Consisting of V-shaped concrete beams, a third of the roof consists of skylights, allowing daylight to flood the building throughout.

"The Halftime building is the only publicly accessible building at the HQ campus. All buildings are striking and pioneering, all with the aim of helping employees continue to push the boundaries," said COBE.

"The building represents a link between the southern campus and the northern campus – both inside and out."

The 8,650-square-meter rhomboid roof structure consists of V-shaped concrete beams. The roof is hovering a flexible and dynamic interior where public and staff functions meet.

"As such, the building is designed to be a perfect working environment for adidas employees and visitors, with space to interact and the opportunity to exploit synergies," added COBE.

The concrete beams, each 16 meters long and weighing 28 tons, add up to a total length of 3.2 kilometers. Nature is invited in with the use of natural materials, planted walls, large floor-to-ceiling windows, a ceiling height of 8 meters and conservatories with trees and plant beds throughout the building.

For sunny days, there is several terraces in connection with the building, located right next to the neighbouring lake.

Project facts

Location: Herzogenaurach, Germany

Client: Adidas Pension Trust

Program: Conference center, canteen, showroom and surrounding landscape

Size: 15,500 m2

Status: 1st prize in competition in 2014, completed in 2018

Competition team: COBE, CLMAP, Knippers Helbig, Transsolar, COBE Berlin

Design and execution team: ARGE COBE & CLMAP (lead consultant), Knippers Helbig, Fact, Bartenbach, Soda, PMI, HMP

Wayfinding and signage: COBE & EIGA

Interior design: COBE

The HALFTIME Chair: COBE and HAY

Awards: ICONIC Award 2015 - Visionary Architecture, Red Dot Communication & Brands Award 2019

Team: Alexander Forsch, Birk Folke Daugaard, Carlos Ramos Fernandez, Caroline Nagel, Clement Bue Maali, Dan Stubbergaard, Freya Dorbritz, Gina Perier, Javier Barriuso Domingo, Johan Lund Pedersen, Karoline Liedtke, Kasper Larsen, Laura Diestel, Maria Aufegger, Milada Vorzova, Milan Milenkovski, Morten Andersen, Navid Christensen, Ole Storjohann, Rasmus Hjortshøj, Rosa Bui, Ted Schauman, Ulrich Pohl.

All images © Rasmus Hjortshøj of COAST.

> via COBE