The airship hangar in Mülheim an der Ruhr stands as a defining landmark in the city's history, representing an architectural achievement in its own right. When the contract came to build a new garage—the size of a football field—for the airship "Theo," a local Mülheim architecture firm rose to the challenge. The resulting design and execution proved so exceptional that the airship hangar and its engineering team were honored with the prestigious Ernst & Sohn Engineering Prize. Today, this imposing structure stands as more than just a shelter—it seamlessly integrates engineering excellence, architectural vision, and sustainable practice while serving as a versatile event venue.

The new hangar honors the distinctive silhouette of its predecessors, yet advances the design with a contemporary, fully recyclable aluminum façade—a significant departure from the fabric roofing of the past. Delicate vertical standing seam lines accentuate the building's refined geometry and gentle curves, creating dynamic interplays of light and shadow that shift throughout the day. A continuous band of windows on the west façade floods the interior with natural light and frames sweeping views of the airfield, control tower, and surrounding airport infrastructure. By contrast, the east elevation remains fully enclosed. The hangar's defining moment comes when its colossal gates open: each 400 m² wing, weighing 72 tonnes, glides smoothly along quarter-circular rails in just three minutes, powered by four electric motors. At 26 metres high with a gross volume of 71,000 m³, the hangar showcases notable technical innovations—most significantly, the structural timber frame and its entirely wooden connections. Some 557 tonnes of wood sourced from German forests form the building's load-bearing skeleton.

Fifteen double-curved arches of glued laminated timber span 42 metres, each engineered as a pure timber truss with 592 individual nodes—hand-fabricated connections using wooden dowels. Crowning these arches lies a roof diaphragm of ten-centimetre cross-laminated timber panels, which simultaneously stiffens the structure and provides acoustic and thermal performance. The high degree of prefabrication enabled assembly of the entire timber frame within weeks. Sustainability extended to the foundations: original concrete was pulverized, recycled on-site, and repurposed as substructure for the hall floor. The new floor slab itself consists of salvaged, large-format concrete panels sourced from an adjacent construction site—eliminating transportation emissions. Through thoughtful material selection and strategic reuse, the project achieved a 156-tonne CO₂ reduction.

www.s-f-architekten.de

Photos:
Annika Feuss
www.annikafeuss.com

(From CUBE Ruhrgebiet 02|24)