If you stand still you’ll never get moving again. And the Sparkassen financial group is making certain this doesn’t happen, by offering staff regular opportunities to improve their skills. In Baden-Württemberg alone there are some 180 staff members who repeatedly upgrade their knowledge. In order to make certain the further training sessions are held in as pleasant and efficient a setting as possible, at the S21 ensemble in Stuttgart’s Europaviertel the Sparkassen group has now opened its own training facility in a dedicated new build: Sparkassenakademie. All future training sessions will be held here.

The true-to-form, centrally located building was designed by wöhr mieslinger Architekten and has just been commissioned. In the northern section of the grounds, in the midst of spacious greenery, it offers training participants not only a pleasurable learning environment, but also lodgings – even for multi-day training sessions. In the calm northeastern corner a total of 148 rooms are available for overnighting. Moreover, there is a childcare center, conference rooms of different sizes and two private restaurants. In a second construction phase, a Sparkassen financial group office building will be erected next to the academy building.

Customized solutions from Lindner Group

With a view to holistic planning, the Lindner Group was consulted for the interior design and provided customized solutions in the form of floor, wall and door systems for the entire complex and for all sections of the new build. A diverse and multi-faceted range of products were used to this end. Hollow floor systems such as “FLOOR and more®” and “CAPOVEX” have been used, as has the “NORTEC” raised floor concept – these are systems that are compelling not only because they allow seamless floors to be created that look exceptionally elegant, but also possess outstanding structural properties and provide strong fire and noise protection.

Lindner Group solutions were used not only to deliver flexible flooring with the ultimate in technological features. For example, back-to-back glass partition walls from the “Lindner Life 125” series keep rooms bright, open, and suffused with light. In addition to the great visual effect, they provide noise absorption of more than 50 dB and therefore make sure no one gets disturbed when studying. Since the idea was to keep rooms as uniform in appearance as possible, the fascia and “Lindner Plus Wooden Framework Doors” were fine-tuned to match the glass systems.

Construction work was completed in May and now that Sparkassenakademie has opened its doors to greet attendees of the training sessions we can look forward to the initial responses. After all, each year some 30,000 staff members will be coming to Stuttgart to receive further training.