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New Trumpf campus restaurant |
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New Trumpf campus restaurant: inspired by nature
| Sopro products ensure trouble-free installation of three-dimensional terracotta units
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The new staff restaurant at the Trumpf head office in Ditzingen near Stuttgart, Germany, is a triumph of modern industrial architecture. The globally operating machine tools manufacturer invested some € 13 m in a new-build campus restaurant that stands in perfect harmony with its setting. The leaf-like polygonal shapes that inform the building design manifest themselves in the special three-dimensional ceramic units lining the internal walls. The task of installing them posed an unaccustomed challenge for both designers and applicators. Here, the products and expertise of Wiesbaden-based Sopro Bauchemie GmbH proved an essential ingredient for success.
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The Trumpf campus on the fringes of the small Swabian town of Ditzingen is a model of urban design. In the last few years, the development of the family company's administrative and production facilities in response to operational requirements has been closely overseen by Berlin-based architectural practice Barkow Leibinger Architekten. "Good architecture inspires good work" – this was the simple maxim behind the Trumpf campus masterplan drawn up by architects Frank Barkow and Regine Leibinger with the aim of unifying all site facilities within a coherent, legible urban framework. A number of schemes proposed by the practice have since been implemented: the laser factory with logistics centre, system technology building, a marketing and service complex, plus a training centre with further service accommodation.
Organic forms as leitmotif
This year saw a new addition to Trumpf's Ditzingen site in the shape of a staff restaurant and auditorium. Though architecturally something of a departure, the campus restaurant harmonizes perfectly with the surrounding ensemble of office and production buildings. The squat, pentagonal pavilion neatly delimits the marketing centre forecourt, which is already framed by polygonal volumes. The new building seems to merge with the land, a large part of the restaurant and kitchen facilities having been sunk below ground-floor level. Floating above the up to nine-metre high main space and gallery level is a lightweight, wide-spanning roof. The openly expressed loadbearing elements, modelled on natural forms and structures, assume a leaf-like arrangement. The basic pentagonal figure and its triangular component parts are formed by the primary steel frame. The triangles, in turn, are filled out by variable-height timber honeycombing, elements of which penetrate the ceiling as rooflights. When operating normally, the restaurant area, meeting lounges and sundeck house some 600 seats. For special events, however, an alternative seating arrangement can be adopted to transform the interior into an 800-person-capacity auditorium. The whole scheme covers a floor area of 5,400 m².
Special three-dimensional terracotta units
The organic shapes and forms of the structural concept are carried over onto the walls of the restaurant area. The purpose-glazed, white and colour terracotta units specially manufactured for the wall finish are both polygonal and three-dimensional, thereby creating canted and undulating textures. With edge lengths up to 30 cm and thicknesses up to 6 cm, these specials reach a weight of some 3-5 kg each. Quite apart from supreme workmanship, the installation of such heavy and curiously shaped components on a reinforced-concrete wall necessitated the development of tailored recommendations by Sopro Bauchemie's technical counselling service.
Given the high demands placed on the substrate, the application of a standard dubbing-out plaster to the unfinished concrete wall was clearly inadequate. The recommended solution involved the use of fibre-reinforced products from Sopro's Repadur range, normally specified for concrete repair. First, a cementitious Sopro Repadur MH PCC mortar bonding layer was applied by block brush to the sandblasted concrete surface. The high-strength, fibre-reinforced Sopro Repadur 50 PCC concrete repair mortar was then placed wet on wet on the bonding layer to even out irregularities in the substrate. The fact that Sopro Repadur 50 can be safely applied in coat thicknesses of up to 20 mm made it possible to meet the stringent levelness requirements placed on the concrete substrate.
The larger of the two wall surfaces to be covered by the special units was then treated with Sopro EPG 522 epoxy primer and the freshly applied coat blinded with Sopro QS 511 coarse silica sand. After the primer had dried, the walls were damp-proofed with two coats of Sopro PU-FD 570 surface sealant – a two-component waterproof liquid polyurethane resin for elastic, sag-resistant membranes below ceramic coverings. While still fresh, the material was then blinded with Sopro QS 511 coarse silica sand to provide good key for subsequent works.
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Customized laying solutions
The special units were installed using Sopro's No.1 – a cementitious, fibre-reinforced, highly polymer-modified flexible tile adhesive, meeting C2 TE requirements to DIN EN 12004 and offering S1-grade deformability (> 2.5 mm) to DIN EN 12002. Sopro's No.1 has been successfully tested for use in system solutions in conjunction with the waterproof membrane. First, the lighter units were fixed to the substrate using the buttering method, i.e. after trowelling adhesive onto the rear face. Here, the immediate, slippage-free bonding offered by Sopro's No.1 was essential. Then, in a second step, the heavier units were securely applied in accordance with the layout drawing.
Grouting of the three-dimensional finish posed several additional challenges. The varying thickness of the units and canted surfaces made it impossible to adopt a conventional (slurry) method. Spray application thus proved the most efficient way to ensure adequate joint filling. The selected product, Sopro FL-S, is a highly flexible, rapid-set, cementitious tile grout, meeting CG2 requirements to DIN EN 13888, with a smooth, compact surface and enhanced deformation properties. Use of this grout also allowed provision of the recessed joints, set back by one centimetre from the face of the covering, specified by the design team. For this, the joints were raked out and smoothed. All perimeter and movement joints were treated with Sopro Marble Silicone, an elastic, oxime-free sealant.
The somewhat unusual, though securely installed internal finishes are perfectly in tune with the building exterior, which features similar three-dimensional specials. Here, however, the units were not adhesive bonded, but bolted to a sheet metal base. Depending on the time of day and light conditions, the white and colour terracotta units, both internally and externally, are host to an intriguing play of light and shade.
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