The object has a dual character in its façade physiognomy: the sloping, landscape-articulated south façade faces the more urban glass/metal façade to the north. The smart, green facade receives optimal lighting from above with its angle of inclination, but the irrigation of the sloping green wall also functions perfectly: both by natural sprinkling but also by artificial irrigation emanating from the roof in the form of sprinklers.
Graz Regional Court
The linear, very simple object is to be understood less as a building than as an envelope figure that - rising from the surface of the adjacent landscaped courtyard - houses the required spatial program.
Year
2023
Venue
Graz
State
Competition
Category
Work
Size
2.878 m²
Year |
Venue |
State |
Category |
Size |
|---|---|---|---|---|
2023 |
Graz |
Competition |
Work |
2.878 m² |
Year
2023
Venue
Graz
State
Competition
Category
Work
Size
2.878 m²
The narrow building field between the existing regional court and the adjacent perimeter block development demands a clear language. In this respect, the project deviates from the angular building study of the test project and shows a linear type with a very characteristic form. The object should appear less as a building, but rather as an envelope figure - folded out of the green courtyard of the neighboring property - that wraps up the spatial program. In this respect, it does not represent a foreign body in perception, but a kind of landscape-like articulated caesura towards the large regional court building.
The view into the window bands, which are shifted deeper inwards due to the geometry, is also limited quasi per se, so that a certain anonymity is guaranteed. Towards the north, the view and thus the reference to the main building that gives the district its name is forced with larger glazing areas. Admittedly, in the areas of the required visual protection, metallic filter surfaces (expanded metal / perforated sheet metal façade) are inserted in the form of walls. In the waiting area of the large jury courtroom, a closed front is planned at all; here, the lighting is provided by translucent roof glazing from above.
An essential aspect of summer comfort, or any ecological building configuration at all, is the massive green south facade.
Here, plant troughs filled with sufficient soil material are virtually "set up" on a stair-like substructure and formed into a continuous green wall. These troughs can provide the root system with enough soil as well as moisture, are both naturally sprinkled and irrigated from the roof: the roof is designed as a retention roof with greenery and drains the collected rainwater via a controlled system even after the rain event over the facade, which thus continuously receives water flowing in. The evaporative cooling generated via this massive green façade and roof keeps the underlying building components cool, creating a kind of NATURAL COOLING.
The slender, linear structure is provided with a stairwell, wet area and shafts at the respective ends. In principle, this allows for good orientation, while some protrusions and recesses in the corridor zones also ensure a certain degree of protection from view. The utilization of the volume geometry locates the functions with the deeper tracts in the deep parterre and in the first floor, the slimmer office tracts in the first and in the second floor. The building is modular, grid-based and thus flexibly designed.
The distribution of the functions basically follows the tender with the distribution on the deep parterre, ground floor, first and secon floor. In the deep floor is the prosecutor's office with: a larger, divisible room (2 x interrogation room, 1x video conference room) with corresponding anteroom (waiting area) , with offices for judicial trainees , legal interns, as well as the office IKT with the proximity to the server room. On the ground floor there are Regional Court functions with jury courtroom, consulting and hearing rooms, as well as with corresponding waiting areas in simple zoning.
Architecture
Pichler & Traupmann Architects
Design team
Bartosz Lewandowski (Team leader)
Anna Chakhal Salakhova
Leonie Eitzenberger
Hard facts
Start of planning: 2023
Usable florr area: 2.490 m²
Gross floor area: 2.878 m²
Gross volume: 10.361 m³
Location: Graz
Use: National Court for Criminal Matters and Public Prosecutor's Office
Scope: EU-wide open, single stage competition
Rendering
The Digital Bunch, PL
Model
Harald Schmidt, Vienna