Everything united at last

An ensemble of existing and new buildings creates space for all town hall functions in Waldbröl

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Many functional areas spread across many different buildings. This is how the town hall of Waldbröl looked until recently. This was neither conducive to functional processes nor particularly pleasant for the citizens. It was therefore time to change this situation and bring the spatially separated functional areas together in one place and unite them organizationally - with the aim of making the town hall more citizen-friendly with an integrated citizens' hall and neighbourhood meeting place.

A suitable plot of land and building was quickly found in "Am Alsberg", close to the city center. The existing building, which already houses the town hall headquarters, is a listed former school building dating back to 1904. It has typical design features of the region from this period, such as black slate cladding and white mullioned windows. It is also home to the former mayor's villa, which has been completely renovated and now houses other functional areas of the town hall. The same applies to the new buildings on the site, which were realized by Archwerk Generalplaner. The dominance of the two-storey school building with its mansard roof, black slate and lattice windows is not to be disturbed. On the contrary, the character of the existing building is to be emphasized and enhanced in terms of design. The design therefore envisages an urban ensemble that organizes the necessary functional units of the town hall in its cubature and blends harmoniously into its surroundings. This ensemble comprises the former school building, the former mayor's villa with a tent roof, a new three-storey long building with a flat roof and a new single-storey hall building with a flat roof.

These four building sections are grouped equally around a new central square in the district. In order to preserve the dominance of the existing buildings, the building envelopes of both new buildings have a deliberately simple design: Narrow storey-high windows in a grid, combined with prefabricated concrete elements, reflect the typical local half-timbered structure and reinterpret it in a careful way.

www.archwerk.org