Flexibility for Great Ideas

From an architectural point of view the peaceful little town of Zell am Harmersbach in the West of the Black Forest is a veritable treasure trove: half-timbered houses can be found alongside Art Nouveau decorations or Gothic, Renaissance, and Baroque structures. The town’s landmark, Stork Tower, even dates back to the time the settlement was founded, a good 700 years ago. Adjacent to this stands the proud town hall building with its gabled roof, stepped gables and belltower. The only thing lacking in the listed building was space, and accordingly in 2018 the desire arose to add an extension. SWS Architekten were commissioned to handle the task and created a new building, which as a link between the old and the new both underlines the historical value of the existing building yet has a modern character all its own. Featuring three stories and forming an annex to the existing building it is fitted with numerous windows and traditional rafter roofs. For the ventilated, curtain wall facade the team chose the dyed fiber-glass reinforced concrete panels by Rieder, as the company’s “concrete skin” product brings together several advantages in a single product: up to five meters long yet wafer-thin at just 13 millimeters the panels are characterized by a subdued, elegant appearance. Moreover, thanks to the variations in format, color, surface, and texture they offer considerable scope for individual design.

Rieder’s carefully selected color ranges lend a natural look to the “face of the building”: Specifically, the extension’s 560 square meter surface is clad with concrete skin panels in the color burgundy, while their sandblasted surface “ferro” produces an effect that both looks and feels vibrant. In addition, the deep warm burgundy red tone blends in perfectly with the ensemble of buildings around the town hall square. In the arrangement of the panels SWS Architekten took up the clinker brick façade of the historic town hall. The customized cladding is relatively light and was easy to install. Thanks to Rieder, the new extension building is well equipped for the coming decades: fire resistant and low maintenance, the glass-fiber reinforced concrete panels provide a robust solution for the façade and as they are also color fast, they do not need to be either sanded or painted.