Dietmar Feichtinger: soaring loop

Parisian designers Dietmar Feichtinger Architectes have designed a sales and finance head office for Austrian company Voestalpine. It is a dynamically curved volume cut at an angle, with an adjustable golden façade. It creates an expansive but clearly bordered open space that extends to the visitors centre in the south. It also combines three very different buildings to create a representative whole. The park is created here by Parisian landscape designers H.Y.L, and has the potential to become one of the city's most imposing parks. The project does nothing to detract from the park, and it interlocks vertically to enhance the value of both upper and lower levels.

Built of reinforced concrete and flanked on the open edges by planted embankments, the accompanying garage features a light-coloured polished floor and is naturally cross-ventilated. The main entrance to the sales and finance office overlooks a city view, positioned below a daring cantilever that exploits steel's structural possibilities. The offices are on the four upper floors that are encased in the golden façade. The offices are separated from these communication areas by glass walls, satin-finished in places. There is a restrained colour scheme in the interior: gentle shades of grey are complemented by the light brown of the wooden floors and by strong colours in the kitchens.

The relatively narrow division of the façade into full-height steel panels and fixed glass elements allows different size offices to be made in accordance with different requirements. Sliding shade elements of frameless expanded metal on the outside face of the façade and textile glare protection on the inside ensure agreeable lighting conditions. Dietmar Feichtinger Architectes leave exposed the steel construction — columns and open web beams — as well as the concrete of the ceiling slabs. The building services, which run only above the corridors, can be made out behind their expanded metal cladding. The discipline that this demanded in both design and execution adds a further level of quiet elegance to the overall expression of the building.

Dietmar Feichtinger Architectes: Financial and commercial department for Voestalpine Stahl GmbH
Architect: Dietmar Feichtinger Architectes
Project team leader: Claire Bodénez and Gerhard Pfeiler
Team: Philipp Hugo Urabl, Dorit Böhme, Roland Basista, Albert Moosbrugger, Ulli Gabriel, Andreas Trampe-Kieslich, Ralitsa Kafova, Camille Duperche, Katharina Düsing, Nemanja Kordic
Team Competition: Benni Eder, Simone Breitkopf, Barbara Feichtinger-Felber, Vicentiu Sopterean, Silviu Aldea, Markus Himmel, Ruth Pofahl, Rupert Siller
Engineers: Schindelar ZT_GmbH
Engineers roof structure BG41: Werkraum ZT GmbH, DI Bauer und DI Resch
Site area: 36.700 m2
Built-up area: 23 160 m2
Competition: 05/2006
Start of construction: 13/08/2007
Completion: 10/2009