Tobias Grau

Office and industrial building

»Simple ideas are easy to get across: we take a concrete table, build over it with glued wooden frames and wrap it in sheet metal «Hadi Teherani

»An architect has to have the courage to be innovative, try out new ideas and be a prophet. Timid architects see the limits, not the opportunities that lie in going beyond them.  «Hadi Teherani

In Hamburg’s Rellingen, the architects have produced a significant work of architecture for the lighting producer Tobias Grau, in a simple way. The design concept, which was realised in two phases, represents a revolutionary new building concept. The cylindrical shaped tubes, which are the predominant elements of the development, housing the administration and warehousing uses, lie parallel to another. They are connected in the middle with a two-storey link, generating an H-formed floor plan. The structure features curved, laminated timber beams, spanning 20 metres, at five metre centres, upon which the external aluminium skin is supported. A concrete platform is inserted into the building ensuring useable space over two-storeys, while at the same time stiffening the structure. Within the office building, the upper storey is ordered with a central zone featuring rectangular atrien, cenference rooms, staircases, and wc cores. Both of the tubes have glass gables, which are filled with two 54 and 180 square metre areas respectively, of dark blue solar collector cells. The design combines aesthetic and functional aspects of the design, to generate a business card for the building and the company.