Shallow foundation above an old existing bunker tunnel
GFA: c. 4,750 m² Time: 2006 – 2007 Building costs: c. 6.8 mill. EUR
Our scope: structural engineering
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The library is situated on the green campus of the Bucerius Law School, directly on the "Planten un Blomen" inner-city park. With 540 working spaces, it provides scientific information for students, academic staff and professors, and is permanently open. It holds more than 110,000 printed media and over 10,000 e-books as well as numerous licensed online and offline databases. As well as the library, the building also houses a lecture hall as well as the university canteen.
The structure was designed as a reinforced concrete skeleton with wide-spanned flat floor slabs. The construction takes the specific functional and design requirements into account. These include offset floor levels – so-called split levels – as well as large and wide-spanned staircases. A pillar-free courtroom has been built on the ground floor. The special facade design is cleverly integrated into the structure by means of offset prefabricated reinforced concrete components above a spandrel beam flush with the first floor.
The basement story is formed of a “white tank” concrete shell in combination with a technically-demanding shallow foundation above an old existing bunker tunnel on the building site.