Shimmering Aluminium Facades Reflects the Colourful Eclectic District
When change and development affect a district and its buildings, it can lead to visual chaos. The interaction of different types of buildings results in unruly grids and visual axes, lack of order in materials and proportions.
That was the problem facing the architects Brückner & Brückner in their new office block project in Nuremberg. The neighbouring buildings are perimeter housing blocks featuring façades punctuated by windows, opposite there is a newly built multi-storey car park with a uniform metal façade and at the back, a manufacturing building with horizontal band style façades. Add to all of this, broken visual axes and building heights.
As a means of reinstating design unity and restoring order in the urban context, the architects planned an oblong volume reiterating the angularity of the car park, following the line of the road and keeping to the standard five-storey height of the buildings.
The rear-ventilated façade of the new building emphasises the different levels using walled and glazed areas and restores the lost scale in the cityscape. However, the result would have been a dull office façade if there had not been more to it. The architects broke up the uniformity of the long bands of windows: by dividing the façade and framing each band of windows with ALUCOBOND panel modules.
The façade’s discreet contours are created by prominent window reveals, as well as recessed joints. The modules are staggered like a row of bricks and generate a dynamic façade. On closer inspection, the grid configuration is not the only reference to the neighbouring buildings’ façades. The shimmering reflection in the aluminium of the colours and forms of neighbouring buildings creates an abstract reflection of a colourful, eclectic district.
Technical Project Details
- Project: Technopark Siemens AG, Nuremberg | Germany
- Architects: Brückner & Brückner architects | Germany
- Construction: riveted / screwed
- Year of Construction: 2012
- Product: ALUCOBOND naturAL Brushed
