The Science Center, the first of its kind in Germany, appears as a mysterious object, giving rise to curiosity and discovery. The visitor is faced with a degree of complexity and strangeness, which is ruled however by a very specific system of structural organization. Located on a very special site in the City of Wolfsburg it is set both as the endpoint of a chain of important cultural buildings (by Aalto, Scharoun and Schweger) as well as being a connecting link to the north bank of the Mittelland Kanal -Volkswagen’s Car Town. Multiple threads of pedestrian and vehicular movement are pulled through the site both on an artificial ground landscape and inside and through the building, effectively composing an interface of movement-paths. Volumetrically, the building is structured in such a way that it maintains a large degree of transparent and porosity on the ground, since the main volume -the Exhibition- is raised thus covering an outdoor public plaza with a variety of commercial and cultural functions which reside in the structural concrete cones. An artificial crater-like land-scape is developed inside the open exhibition space allowing diagonal views to the different levels of the exhibitionscape, while volumes, which protrude, accommodate other functions of the science center. A glazed public wormholelike extension of the existing bridge flows through the building allowing views to and from the exhibition space.
Architectural Design
Zaha Hadid, Christos Passas
Architects
Zaha Hadid Architects (London, UK)
Mayer Baehrle Freie Architekten BDA (Loerrach, Germany)
Project Architect
(Zaha Hadid Architects), Christos Passas
Asst. Project Architect
(Zaha Hadid Architects), Sara Klomps
Project Team
(Zaha Hadid Architects)
Sara Klomps, Gernot Finselbach, David Salazar, Helmut Kinzler
Competition Team
Christos Passas, Janne Westermann, Chris Dopheide, Stanley Lau, Eddie Can, Yoash Oster, Jan Hubener, Caroline Voet
Special Contributor
(Zaha Hadid Architects), Patrik Schumacher
Contributors
(Zaha Hadid Architects)
Silvia Forlati, Guenter Barczik, Lida Charsouli, Marcus Liermann, Kenneth Bostock, Enrico Kleinke, Constanze Stinnes, Liam Young, Chris Dopheide, Barbara Kuit, Niki Neerpasch, Markus Dochantschi
Project Architects
(Mayer Baehrle)
Rene Keuter, Tim Oldenburg
Project Team
(Mayer Baehrle)
Sylvia Chiarappa, Stefan Hoppe, Andreas Gaiser, Roman Bockemühl, Annette Finke, Stefanie Lippardt, Marcus Liermann, Jens Hecht, Christoph Volkmar
Structural Engineers
Adams Kara Taylor (London, UK), Tokarz Freirichs Leipold (Hanover, Germany)
Services Engineers
NEK (Braunschweig, Germany), Buro Happold (Berlin, London)
Cost Consultant
Hanscomb GmbH (Germany)
Lighting Consultants
Fahlke & Dettmer (Hanover, Germany)
Office for Visual
Interaction (New York, USA)
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