Like a sheet of paper.
This is how the wide, projecting roof floats over the administrative building of the paper-maker Papierfabrik Palm. The subject of "paper" is thus made manifest and translated into spatial experience.
The clue to realising this "sheet of paper made of steel" is its extremely economical method of manufacture and the unconventional means of achieving its form. More than 1,500 steel sheets were welded together, immediately adjacent to the building, to produce an absolutely even, 30 cm thick hollow panel with a surface area of 32 x 46 metres and a total weight of 225 tonnes.
After assembly and with the aid of two large cranes, the construction was lifted in a single operation onto the building itself, a reinforced concrete skeleton structure packaged in a modern steel and glass facade. Beforehand, steel pillars of differing lengths had been set in place. When the panel was lowered onto the pillars, the heights of which had been exactly pre-determined, the harmonious form was impressed into the roof – as desired and as calculated in advance.
© Jörg Hempel, Jörg Hempel, BIN, Jörg Hempel