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Henning Larsen unveils design for a new office building in Germany’s third-oldest city Augsburg

Germany Architecture News - Sep 16, 2021 - 16:32 2672 views

Scandinavian architecture practice Henning Larsen has unveiled design for a new office building in Germany's third-oldest city, Augsburg.

Called Ladehof Augsburg, the new office building will be located in Augsburg and will activate an underused plot along the city’s railway, adding a new layer to the city’s many ages of development.

Augsburg is known as one of Germany’s oldest cities and has a rich and layered history, and an urban fabric to match. The city’s architecture, has a mix of styles, is unified in its grandeur. With this new project, Henning Larsen’s new Ladehof building will be a natural contemporary addition to this tapestry.

The 170-meter-long building, situated within a masterplan as part of redevelopment plans on the land immediately abutting Augsburg’s main train station, will act as a gateway into the city center for visitors and residents alike.

Henning Larsen unveils design for a new office building in Germany’s third-oldest city Augsburg

Covering a total of 20,400-square-metre area, the building will primarily house offices, with commercial and restaurant spaces embedded in the ground level podium.

"The area around the main station in Augsburg has been long underserved, and our goal with Ladehof was to reactivate the area and bring some of the city’s architectural beauty out to this area as well," said Werner Frosch, director of Henning Larsen’s Munich office.

"The design is contemporary but nods to the flourishes you see in the Baroque, Rococo, and even Art Nouveau structures throughout the city."

To break down the massive scale of the plot (over 1.5x the length of a Bundesliga football pitch), Henning Larsen divided the building mass into four volumes that have equal proportions.

Henning Larsen unveils design for a new office building in Germany’s third-oldest city Augsburg

These structures are, in turn, offset from each other to further subdivide and add rhythm and human scale to the long façade.

Moving up from the ground level podium, the individual volumes will be clad in gold panels that softly radiate light throughout the day. Each of the four volumes are crowned by arced parapets that abstractly reference the onion domes and mansard roofs of the Altstadt.

Although the volumes are visually distinct from the outside, the volumes are aligned in the interior to allow tenants the option of leasing out any amount of space.

Henning Larsen unveils design for a new office building in Germany’s third-oldest city Augsburg

The architects designed flexible modules to be able to make fitout fast and the modules can be configured to accommodate any range of spatial needs.

They designed two roof decks on the upper floors to provide ample space for office gatherings/events and offer views out to the city along with the hills that surround it.

Henning Larsen unveils design for a new office building in Germany’s third-oldest city Augsburg

Ladehof Augsburg is developed by CV Real Estate AG and is designed in collaboration with landscape architects Ramboll Studio Dreiseitl.

As Henning Larsen noted, the building is currently in the final phases of design development and is expected to be completed in the summer of July 2024.

Henning Larsen unveils design for a new office building in Germany’s third-oldest city Augsburg