TWO PROJECTS FOR DAIMLER AG IN STUTTGART
In late 2021, coinciding with Daimler Truck AG going public, O&O Baukunst finished two major projects in Stuttgart for Daimler AG and Daimler Truck AG, building workspaces for a total of around 6,400 employees. Despite the very different requirements of the two sites in Vaihingen and Leinfelden-Echterdingen, the projects both use a shared building kit designed by O&O Baukunst, making them an excellent example of modular construction.
The offices are built on a ground floor base that accommodates all shared and public use areas: Foyer and exhibition spaces, food courts, cafés and restaurants, conference and meeting areas, health and company medical centres, a bicycle parking garage, and a kindergarten. This base gives shape to the surrounding urban space and provides a foundation for the H-shaped modular office floors rising up above. Large window elements create open, light-flooded office spaces of up to 800 square metres, unobstructed by fixtures and subdivisions. Different working environments can be set up and flexibly adapted. The structures of the two buildings can be read in the fully prefabricated façade, an all- encompassing, expansive white grid. Ventilation flaps edge the fixed glazing on either side. The multi- storey circulation areas situated between the office areas reveal the structural method from the inside, a steel bridge construction that allows elevators and steel stairways to be freely positioned and the entrance area to be spanned without using pillars.
Building materials remain visible, starting with the unclad service installations. The building fluctuates between raw metallic fixtures, the fairfaced concrete of the wall and ceiling surfaces, screed floors, and the steel structural elements painted in shades of grey and white. Acoustically dampening oak wood panelling completes the range of materials.
Daimler Truck Campus in Leinfelden
The campus is situated in a diverse area. To the north, towards Fasanenweg, the property is adjacent to an already developed commercial area, and to the south towards Meisenweg borders a mixed residential and commercial zone. The west and east sides have no public road access. There, along the railway line and a neighbouring commercial area, the property is edged only by pedestrian paths and a transregional bicycle route. The structure responds to the heterogeneous surroundings with four cross-shaped inner courtyards. Each of the courtyards connects to the neighbourhood in its own way, showing that the site is an open office location linked to the surroundings on multiple channels. An elongated central courtyard on Fasanenweg provides the office campus’s mailing address. Visitors and employees arriving by public transport reach the main entrance via this courtyard. An outdoor dining area in front of the company restaurant invites one to stay a while and enjoy. The western courtyard offers a direct connection to the transregional bicycle path that runs along the railway embankment. Cyclists arriving here are welcomed by a bicycle station. The east courtyard opposite the adjacent commercial area is dedicated to delivery, supply chain, and waste disposal. The fourth courtyard, to the south, is a terrace that provides quieter lounge areas connected to a garden for employees and visitors. A café in the lobby fulfils any dining needs that arise while enjoying the deck. The four courtyards are continued by and centred around a central hall. This 1,500-square-metre space is eight metres high in places, its steel bearing structure uniting all community functions of the Daimler Truck AG office campus in the tradition of large industrial factories.
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Daimler Office V Stuttgart Vaihingen
The Am Wallgraben quarter in Stuttgart Vaihingen is an actively developing area. The first building blocks make it clear that that the limited depth of use of the public roads and squares make urban density in the conventional sense impossible, particularly on the ground floor. The identification with the green city concept opens up an opportunity to shape the cityscape and create a clear character for the site despite the existing heterogeneity of the area. The individual buildings of the office campus jump back and forth along the line of the street. The areas that arise between the street and the buildings are filled with trees and greenspace. Large green areas, such as the ones on Industriestraße with the outdoor facilities of the day care centre or the one on Wallgraben, alternate with these avenue greenspaces that are up to 10 metres deep. From the front street, the building volumes seem to be independent. On the inside, they follow a simple, urban logic, forming a precisely defined, dense, central urban space, the heart of the development, accessed by lanes entering from all three surrounding streets. The city is turned from the inside to the out. Compact and organised, like an engine block: What looks like a sprawling office park from the outside is a dense public place from the inside. An addition that will act as a motor for the district as a whole.
