Raiffeisen Finance Center

The continuity of the building envelope conveys a sense of identity to both staff and customers, while the building’s volumetric shaping ensures it a striking role in the appearance of the town. It is made of aluminium sandwich panels whose colouring might awaken associations with coins or the bank’s corporate identity. Narrow window openings at calculated positions in the facades respond to the need to screen people who work at computers from glare.

This basic idea – quoted from the explanatory report that accompanied the competition entry – was deepened and developed further. To the east and the west the building is encased in a metallic facade made of Alucobond panels that is perforated by windows arranged in a specially developed layout. This layout allows unfamiliar views outside, but also offers the staff an almost intimate work atmosphere and provides protection against glare for those working at computers.

The amount of glazing is based on guidelines on lighting for work places. This allows a large area of solid wall which, thanks to its building physics qualities (good thermal insulation and good heat storage), contributes to optimising the building’s energy balance. The full-height glass facades to the south are a response to the marvellous views across the plain of the River Wulka and, thanks to regulatory elements (sun screen system), can allow energy (solar heat gain) to enter the building or can screen most of it.

The interior is formulated as a regulated system of reference on various levels of meaning:

Firstly, in terms of spaces and materials it forms a single entity with the building’s external form. The material used for the external shell provides the starting point for the concept of materials used in the interior. Like the facade, the window reveals and the fan coils are also clad with Alucobond. The suspended ceilings in the formal areas on the upper floor are made of the metal in the same colour so that, in a sense, the building envelope is drawn into the interior. The exposed, unclad areas of ceiling and external wall are made of smooth exposed concrete. Plasterboard painted light grey is used for the suspended ceilings above the corridor areas as well as for parts of the office partition walls, and together with flooring of sound absorbent rubber or carpet complements the canon of materials in softly graduated shades of grey. The elegant neutralizing background allows individual colour accents to be used in the work area to emphasise special areas, spheres, or significance.

Thirdly, as a depiction of the company’s internal organisation
The structural layout of the building and the articulation of the facade on a basic grid of 1.30 m allows the office partition walls to be positioned flexibly within the given grid system. This allows rooms of different sizes to be made that respond to various functions and needs and, where necessary, can be easily altered. Open, semi-open or closed areas can be easily made in different formulations. The plans of the different floors illustrate this system’s high degree of flexibility. Monotony and repetition are avoided; different functions and levels of organization can be depicted.

Fourthly, as an articulated body of rules of communication
The partitions between the individual offices are made of glass or have a high-level strip of glazing that varies in height. The different amounts of glazing articulate the different amount or degree of communication required.

Particular attention is devoted to the design of the foyer and entrance hall. As a connecting element between the existing fabric and the new building this space is the building’s calling card, so to speak. Its quality is derived from its permeability, its height, the connecting bridges that traverse it, and from its glass facades that are several storeys high: the glass facade to the outside and the glass facade positioned in front of the restructured part of the existing fabric for which an artistically designed lighting concept is employed.