State offices Saarbrücken
State Offices for Consumer, Health and Safety at Work, as well as Youth, Welfare and Pensions, Saarbrücken, Germany
Competition: 2002 - 1st Prize
Construction period: 2004 - 2005
Design: Eckhard Gerber
Project director/Project manager: Thomas Helms
Project team: Gerd Gröschl, Markus Görtz, Georg Kolendowicz, Peter Masik et al.
Client: Land Saarland vertr. durch das Landesamt für Bau und Liegenschaften, Saarbrücken
Gross area: 9.109 m²
Volume: 35.237 m³
In terms of urban design and functional content, the ensemble of a 1956 office building to the north (today the State Office for Youth, Welfare and Pensions), a new bar-form building opposite (the State Office for Consumer, Health and Labour Protection) and a new connecting structure forms a complete urban neighbourhood which leads to the Saar waterside terraces. The three buildings enclose a public courtyard dominated by a reflecting pool and bordered, on its western side, by a grove and a tree-shaded parking area.
The laboratories and departmental spaces in the western section of the wide and long new building surround a planted atrium, and are complemented by the administration offices on the eastern side of the building.
The second new building (which replaces a derelict old building section) housing the cafeteria (which is oriented to the courtyard) forms the centre of the complex. A glazed hall connects the old building with this new wing. The intermediate space between these structures and the State Office for Consumer, Health and Labour Protection, though covered by a glass canopy, remains open and 'permeable'. A glazed bridge on the first upper level shortens the way between the offices and the cafeteria.
The outer appearance corresponds to the urban design intention to create clearly defined urban spaces. Vertically structured metal panels – brass-coloured and shimmering in reddish and greenish hues – with vertical windows cut into them clad the two new buildings, playing with their structural and spatial volumes.
