Shamrock Park covers an area of around 100,000 m². It owes its name to Irishman William Thomas Mulvany, who founded the Hibernia colliery and the Shamrock mine in Herne in 1853. Later, RAG had its administrative headquarters on the site for a long time, adding buildings and thus creating today's Shamrock Park with its campus flair and abundance of greenery. Since its sale in 2018 to the project development investor Fakt, the park has been continuously transformed and revitalised for the future. One of these conversion projects is the new 2,000 m² office space for the state institution gpaNRW (Gemeindeprüfungsanstalt NRW), which has been extensively renovated by the architectural firm Christian Kohl Architekten.

The implementation was preceded by intensive requirements planning. The aim was to define the future working environment of the service provider, around a third of whose workforce is based at its headquarters in Shamrockpark. Consideration had to be given to premises for training and further education, areas for informal exchanges, permanent workstations for the changing working groups and space for teams. The former administration building from the 1980s is based on a system of modular components for the supporting structure and façades. "The corridors were correspondingly cramped, with closed, load-bearing walls leading to individual rooms," says architect Christian Kohl, describing the situation he found. In order to break up the cramped structure, the load reserves in the supporting system were checked. In selected areas, this made it possible to create generous openings supported by steel beams. The positive effect: the space spread over three wings of the building is now available in its entirety as open usable space and, thanks to the generous window areas on both sides, allows plenty of natural light into all areas. The heart of the building is the reception area and the so-called marketplace.

Visually, the different room zones and functional areas are made visible and tangible by changing floor coverings. High-quality vinyl floors transition seamlessly into areas with carpeted floors, all of which have very good acoustic properties and are CO₂-neutral throughout their entire life cycle. Glass partitions create protected zones for undisturbed work, but thanks to their transparency, they never appear divisive. The colour scheme reflects the client's corporate design. In the struggle to achieve the desired room heights, a concept was pursued that combined suspended and open ceiling panels. This is supported by the LED lighting concept, which provides additional structure to the work and communal areas.

www.kohlarchitekten.de

Photography Credits:

Florian Wagner
www.fwfoto.com

(Published in CUBE Ruhrgebiet 01|22)