Out of Conviction

Musty offices are still a reality for many people. However, with growing climate awareness, companies are increasingly building in environmentally friendly ways—out of conviction, but also because people prefer to work and perform better in comfortable, healthy spaces. The Hortus office building by Swiss architects Herzog & de Meuron near Basel, in which Martin Rauch's company Lehm Ton Erde is also involved, is considered particularly forward-looking. Although the building has not yet been completed and will not open until the summer, it is already attracting a lot of attention and has been praised by critics. Deservedly so: The wood-clay composite building by real estate developer Senn has been sustainably planned down to the smallest detail in order to achieve the best possible environmental balance; even furnishings such as the recyclable energy-saving lights have been specially developed for the project. Exemplary green office buildings are also being built in Austria—for example in Ernstbrunn, north of Vienna. The company Windkraft Simonsfeld, which operates wind turbines and solar power plants in Lower Austria's Weinviertel region, Bulgaria, and Slovakia, and produces electricity for 185,000 households, has expanded its headquarters there with a new showcase building. Designed by Juri Troy and his team, the building will officially open in the coming days.

The extension had become necessary after the Windkraft Simonsfeld's considerable growth in recent years. Office space at the company headquarters was suddenly in short supply and there was also a lack of space for events and meetings with customers. Even shared lunch breaks in the canteen were no longer possible for all of the now 140 employees. In the search for a solution to its space problem, the energy supplier organized an architectural competition in which the participants had to respond to the wishes and needs of its team. Juri troy architects won the competition in 2022. The firm developed a new two-story building with a U-shaped footprint. With two connecting wings, it docks onto the outwardly curved street facade of the existing high-tech building by Wolfgang Reinberg from 2014, so the old and new buildings enclose an inner courtyard. The extension to the south has many advantages—for example, it allows for bright, friendly offices. Unfortunately, the elegant existing facade with its large glass surfaces and filigree steel construction, which supports solar panels on three levels, disappears completely behind the new building. Nevertheless, employees and customers can experience the charming clash of the different eco-architectures—technical enthusiasm here, natural building materials there—in the landscaped courtyard, where various seating areas invite you to linger.

The ground floor of the new timber-frame building is set back on three sides, creating a surrounding weather-protected terrace. In the area of the canteen, the terrace widens due to an additional recess in the building, allowing employees to enjoy their lunch break outside on warm days. The extension is entered through the new main entrance on the west side. To the left of the reception, on the side of the inner courtyard, a cozy communal area connects the entrance with the staff restaurant and an event room in the eastern wing connected to the old building. To the right of the reception on the south facade are various meeting rooms, some of which can be connected. The core of the building with stairs, elevator, and sanitary facilities is made of rammed earth. The architects innovatively use the clay walls for thermal activation in order to heat or cool the house. Once again, the combination of rammed earth and wood surfaces ensures a comfortable and healthy indoor climate. And it is also an aesthetic win-win: the textures and colors of the two natural building materials harmonize perfectly.

The two staircases lead to another large lounge area on the south side of the upper floor, which has a loggia in front of it—the company and employees had asked the architects to provide plenty of space for exchange and community life. The office workstations are arranged on the second floor along the east and west facades, although the timber frame construction allows for rearrangements at any time. For group work or meetings, there are meeting rooms on the north side that look out onto the courtyard. There are also separate retreat rooms for concentrated work.

Juri Troy has been involved in environmentally friendly architecture for a long time. Fifteen years ago this fall, he built Austria's first CO₂-neutral detached house, the Sunlighthouse. In fifteen more years time, the house's geothermal heat pump and solar system will have produced more energy than was needed to build it, transport the building materials, and operate it. The architect, who has been teaching timber construction at TU Wien since 2023, has won several important architecture awards for the project. His new building for Windkraft Simonsfeld shows just how much has been achieved since then: the wood-clay hybrid construction with 11 deep probes (the building complex has 28 in total), a geothermal heat pump, and a large solar system on the roof had a positive CO₂ balance even during the construction phase, he proudly explains. In fact, the new company headquarters achieved the Climate Active Gold eco-certificate with a maximum score of 1000 points. This progress is made possible by the energy generation and the consistency in the choice of building materials—although the Sunlighthouse was also built from wood and produces green energy, it still has a concrete basement, for example.

The Windkraft Simonsfeld headquarters is one of many encouraging individual projects by strong-minded developers that show what can be done for the sake of the environment and climate. Hopefully, more companies will soon be making such architectural statements. The wishes, and perhaps also the expectations, of younger employees could provide the necessary impetus.