Dome

View looking northwest, towards old repurposed factory building (a cafe, cafeteria); The Umweltbundesamt (UBA) is the German equivalent of the EPA in the US; it monitors environmental concerns. The building in Dessau contains the main offices (800 workers in 10 departments) and is a very large complex which has integrated two older buildings into it; the Wörlitzer Bahnhof (a listed building and former train station) and an adjacent factory building (which manufactured gas appliances). The new construction is a four-storey curved building of about 460m length, with the offices placed either side of a central corridor, and a tree-like circulation route. A key purpose is to break down the potentially monolithic nature of the facade, while providing a color code for seven different areas of the building. The facade, which is 35 per cent glass, has eight alternating horizontal bands of timber and glass. Spandrels are clad in larch slats, which will weather to silver-gray. Clear glazed windows are set back 30 cm from the timber; in between a series of glass 'blocks' of varying widths are inserted, with screen-print color enamelled onto the back surface. It has the German equivalent of a Gold LEED certification. Source: Sauerbruch Hutton Architects [firm website]; http://www.sauerbruchhutton.de (accessed 7/26/2012)