A Purposeful Front Garden
An inviting entrance transforms the character of a seminar building.
How do you create a space where everyday stress melts away the moment you approach a building—where visitors can shed distractions and bring full presence to what awaits? Landscape architect Christian Kögler answered this question by designing a 750 m² entrance area for a seminar centre. His inspiration came directly from the site itself: the forest setting and the building's contemporary aesthetic. The solution proved to be literally heavyweight—Kögler specified massive concrete slabs, each weighing 2.6 tonnes, to pave the expansive plaza. Combined with the integrated "woodland garden," the result is a serene, sophisticated space that shifts through the seasons, offering visual drama year-round.
The design brief demanded clean lines, restrained elegance, and a thoughtful mix of native and ornamental plantings—delivering lavish blooms in summer and brilliant autumn foliage. The semi-transparent façade creates a visual connection between the garden and seminar spaces, inviting participants to pause and reconnect with nature before returning focus to their work. The six-month planning phase gave way to an eight-month construction period of surprising complexity. A handful of diseased oaks were removed, while selected heritage plantings were carefully preserved and woven into the new design. The toughest challenge came with installing the concrete slabs. Preliminary excavation carved trenches as deep as 1.8 metres to accommodate underground utilities. Then came the precision work: an 18-tonne mobile excavator positioned each three-by-two-metre slab—18 centimetres thick—into place. The pièce de résistance was a vacuum-lifting system, the only one of its kind in Germany, which solved the problem of manipulating such massive elements. A graceful corner staircase bridges the metre-high level change, while mature maple trees—some over 50 years old—anchor oversized tree pits, and spreading planes shade the garden to the right. Nearly 4,500 new perennials were established during the renovation. The final result: a layered, purposeful plaza that radiates calm and inspiration.
Photos:
Christian Kögler
(Published in CUBE Ruhrgebiet 04|21)
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