F.A.Z. Tower, Frankfurt/ Main, Germany
New building as headquarters for the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung FAZ.
The office tower with 18 stories above ground resembles the letter H in its basic form. It consists of two slender bars, which are slightly offset from each other and rotated off axis. Above the seven-story boulevard development, it takes up the design of the “Praedium” residential tower across the street. The tower is complemented by another eight-story mixed-use complex. Retail and gastronomy areas on the first floor emphasize the urban character and increase amenity values.
In cooperation with Eike Becker Architekten, Transsolar developed a concept for energy, air conditioning and ventilation, which was verified and optimized on the basis of detailed simulations. The concept was coordinated and further developed with the planning partners HSGP (TGA) and DS Plan (building physics), who joined the project later. From the very beginning, the concept included external movable solar shading, a special feature for a 66-meter-high building, made possible by the structure of the wind-protective facades.
Each common room has windows that can be opened for naturally ventilation, even on the top floor. In combination with the solar protection, this gives the building resilience, and even in the summer it is possible to create good working conditions without energy consumption and the use of air conditioning.
In addition, mechanical ventilation ensures the minimum ventilation defined for each individual room. The exhaust air is extracted centrally in the corridor area.
Cooling sails are installed under the concrete ceilings, which are also used for heating in winter. Then a heat pump makes use of the waste heat from the server cooling; it is fed to the heating sails. Due to the high thermal insulation quality of the facade components, no heating convectors or similar are required on the facade.
The originally planned geothermal system could not be realized due to contaminated sites; the district heating connection supplements the heat generation on cold days. Cooling is provided by a chiller if required.
The high-rise building has been completed in fall 2022. At the year change 2022/2023, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung and about 1,000 employees moved from the Gallus district to the nearby Europa district.