BMW Central Building
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The building at night
Hélène Binet (website) Download Original
Offices and technical spaces for car manufacturing plant BMW, in Leipzig, Germany
The structure is essentially a link building between the simple industrial sheds that constitute the remainder of the huge production plant. Cars have to be transported from one shed to another and the 500 office and production staff are encouraged to move freely throughout the space.
Elevated conveyor tracks allow half-finished cars to be seen overhead, along with other activities on the production line. The conveyors leave the floor plan unobstructed.
Aside from a large reception hall for 2000 people, the open-plan space is broken up by multiple level changes, with office space arranged in 'cascades'. The result is an interior that reads like an interior landscape rather than as a conventional office space.
The building is expressed in a near monochrome palette of dark-grey stone floors and exposed concrete walls. There is only one external elevation as the building is surrounded on three sides and this is rather more discreet, with the entrance to the building under a flying concrete bridge.
Data
- Begun: Mar 2003
- Completed: Feb 2005
- Floor area: 27,000m2
- Sectors: Industrial, Office
- Total cost: £37M
- Tender date: Dec 2002
- Address: BMW Allee 1, Leipzig, 04349, Germany
Professional Team 
- Architect: Zaha Hadid Architects
- Project architect: Zaha Hadid
- Client: BMW Group, Munich
- Project manager: ARGE Projektsteuerung
- Project manager: Assmann-Obermeyer
- Landscape architect: Gross Max
- Acoustic engineer: PMI
- Lighting consultant: Equation Lighting
- Main contractor: Arge Rohbau
- Main contractor: Wolf and Mueller with OBAG
- Structural engineer: AGP Arge Gesamtplanung
- M&E engineer: AGP Arge Gesamtplanung
- Structural engineer: Anthony Hunt Associates
- M&E engineer: Anthony Hunt Associates
Suppliers
- Steelwork: Max Bögl Bauunternehmen GmbH
- Fit-out and interior glass: Jaeger Akustik GmbH
- Facade: Radeburger Fensterbau/ Schneider Fertigbau