Refurbishment RICHTER Gedeon AG

Archi-kon kft.
Product: Planum facade, 2611 m2, RAL 9010

The industrial area Gyömr Street in Budapest has a mixed building stock. Coming from the direction of the city, visitors were welcomed by an informal, partially dilapidated warehouse built in the 1970s on the central site of Richter Gedeon pharmaceutical company. The technical experts of the company proposed to the company management an energetic renovation, the owner of the company wanted an architectural solution representing the company.

Archi-kon GmbH won the competition for facades with a design which, in addition to an innovative architectural solution matching the company’s image, also aimed at designing the environment in this industrial environment.

The existing 30 m high warehouse building with a closed cube on the central site of Richter Gedeon Pharmaindustrie is clearly visible from the main street. The aim of the façade reconstruction was two-sided: instead of the structurally outdated cladding, a time-resistant solution was to be created from a thermal and structural point of view. At the same time, this applied solution should also better represent the company’s image.

When designing and implementing the new façade, the basic aim was to find a constructive solution that matched the function and a characteristic surface consisting of very simple elements. The structure of the thermally ideal, rear-ventilated façade cladding was interpreted as a continuous surface that was intended to awaken the feeling of movement and dynamism in the observer without resorting to mobile components. The architects wanted to achieve this with as few means as possible. Thus they came up with the idea of creating an extremely varied and associative image by shifting the individual rows in different dimensions, creating a feeling of flow, using ordinary steel plates as façade cladding instead of the usual grid system.

The resulting façade appearance was reinforced by steel slats inserted into the vertical joints, which were shifted in steps, and protruding from the façade level. Thus the building can on the one hand show a constantly changing picture from its visually excellent position as a dynamic point of view (from the driver’s point of view) and on the other hand keep its surface in a constant, fine motion by the wandering clouds, the sun and the resulting changing shadows and lights.

The resulting cladding consists of the DOMICO Planum metal façade system with the associated substructure. General profile size: cover width 800; length: 2000 mm. Colour: broken white. The slats protruding from the facade level were made of 2 mm thick 15 x 80 cm brushed stainless steel.

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