Mixed-use buildung Südpark
Basel, Switzerland
Competition 1st prize 2003
Project 2009-2011
Südpark.
Overview
Client
SBB AG, Bern, Switzerland
Architecture
Herzog & de Meuron, Basel, Switzerland
Team ZPF
Heike Egli-Erhart, Ana Maria Eigenmann, Hans-Peter Frei, Alfred Männel, Helmuth Pauli, Alfred Schläpfer, Andreas Zachmann
Awards
Auszeichnung Guter Bauten Kanton Basel-Landschaft Kanton Basel-Stadt 2013
In 2003, the team of Herzog & de Meuron and ZPF Ingenieure won the project competition for construction zones D and B in the Gundeldingen Quarter, opposite the main railway station on the other side of the tracks. Construction zone D, with its Südpark building, was completed in 2011 by Herzog & de Meuron and ZPF. Construction of the Meret Oppenheim high-rise in construction zone B began in autumn 2016.
The buildings that line Güterstrasse, the lifeline of the Gundeldinger Quarter, and represent a diversity of styles and ages, are all integrated into the quarter’s regular block pattern. The Südpark as perimeter block with courtyard mirrors the neighbourhood in its façade. The facade's matt silvery appearance was created with standard synthetic stucco. The seemingly random arrangement of the different window openings is the result of parametric programming developed by Herzog & de Meuron and the Chair of CAAD at ETH Zurich. Twelve freely combined window shapes fuse into meandering, right-angled windows designed to match the scale and daily activities of human life.
Südpark is a multifunctional building with challenging specifications and uses, such as underground parking and an underground computer centre, large retail shops, flexible office space on four floors facing Güterstrasse, and a retirement home with restaurant and courtyard in a ten-storey high-rise facing the railway line.
In the ten-storey building with two basement floors, measuring 70 x 80 m, the load is transferred by a system of columns, so as to achieve maximum flexibility. Due to the building's different uses, columns are supported in a localised manner by means of pre-stressed flat slabs. The silvery façade consists of self-supporting prefabricated and plastered compound wood elements.