Colour and form as stylistic devices
This new dormitory of the Student Union Osnabrück is located on the edge of a green area not far from the university. The house immediately catches the eye, simply because it is not grey like most campus buildings. Instead, it appears pleasantly colourful.
Differentiated closeness to nature
From a distance, the four-storey dormitory seems to fade into the background and merge with the trees of the green area, but when approaching it reveals itself to be a decidedly self-confident new building. At first it becomes clear that the building is dynamic not only because of its colourfulness, but also because it has a wave-like curtain-type facade. This momentum is based on a sine wave, which plays an important part in nature, but also in many natural science subjects. If one approaches even closer, the colourful overall impression is differentiated into individual fine colour stripes. They symbolically express the lively student life.
Ceramic special pieces intelligently mounted
The single-coloured stripes of the façade consist of a total of 9,574 ceramic special pieces from Agrob Buchtal's "KeraShape" series, which are arranged in several layers one above the other - usually 114, 145 or 81 cm long and with a cross-section of 50 x 60 mm. They are glazed on four sides in six different colours and do not differ from each other except for their colour and length. Due to this uniformity and because they are mounted to the substructure with concealed clamps, the impression of seamlessly continuous colour stripes or bars is created.
Dynamically curved facade made of modular elements
The appearance of the building in terms of colour was designed with great care by the planners of the office PLAN.CONCEPT Architekten. They decided on a total of six reddish and green RAL colours, which Agrob Buchtal then ceramically realized. Ceramics as facade material was relatively quickly clear for the architects. Wood, for example, would have been too maintenance-intensive and aluminium too harmful to the environment due to its high energy input during production. However, the sustainability aspect also played an important part for them. On the one hand, they wanted to create a house in which the up to 124 students would still feel comfortable in the distant future. On the other hand, the material of the building shell had to be suitable for the plus-energy house concept with photovoltaics, solar heat and heat pump and consequently consist of a durable, natural raw material.
