ORIGINAL: GoetheInstitut
Working World of the Future –
the New Corporate Headquarters of the Solar Company Solon in Berlin
How does a company that produces photo-voltaic elements present itself? Of course with a building optimised in terms of ecological and energy efficiency and with an impressive solar roof. Solon SE has mounted a 210 kWp photo-voltaic installation on the circumferential roof, which also accommodates the test fields of the development department.
Thermal insulation with vacuum panels, triple-glazed windows and the bio-gas heating power plant as well as a state-of-the-art energy management system make it possible to operate the building on a CO2 emission-neutral basis.
The new headquarters of SOLON SE, a company founded twelve years ago and which has rocketed to success, in the Technology Park Berlin-Adlershof, is one of those ambitious corporate buildings that consistently convert the change in working conditions into architecture. Industrial workplaces are nowadays
- as clean as a laboratory,
- bright as daylight,
- user-friendly and equipped with service and social rooms, not to forget
- the break rooms with designer furniture, just like those required by the white-collar employees.
The highly-qualified employees are pampered. The administration offices are open, glazed, with views into the greenery and avoid hierarchies. Restaurants and lounges are available for the work breaks. The spatial organisation is designed to facilitate a maximum of contact opportunities among the employees – constructed communication, so to speak. Unusually high rooms, interior glass walls enabling one to look through the building and connecting aisles are defining features of this communicative working world. The green courtyards are an essential design element of this office landscape.
Visitors are rather surprised to see a veritable paternoster here. They have actually been banned since 1974, nevertheless, the architect managed to obtain a permit for it as a “circulating elevator”.
Modern, pragmatic design language
The young Berlin-based architect Heinrich Schulte-Frohlinde, who had already been in charge of Solon’s older buildings on previous locations, now had the chance to realise his ideas in a 47-million-Euro new building. He favours a modern, pragmatic design language far removed from any pathos and definitely far removed from the set-in-stone Berlin architecture of recent times.
The idea of the building was to unite production and administration under a common roof – a solar roof. The western part of the building accommodates 19,800 square metres of factory halls and, in the upper storey, offices in close proximity to the production area. Adjoining this in the eastern part is the administration section with 320 office workplaces. The same facades and the connecting roof link the two parts into an architectonic unit.
At the south-east end the roof tapers down dramatically almost to the ground. It is covered by a lush, carefully mown meadow and bordered by the photo-voltaic installation. Stairwell towers clad in rusty corten steel rise from the interior, piercing through the roof. The employees can go up to the roof terraces and spend their breaks there; attractive deckchairs are in place, there is a sunbathing area and a sandy “beach” with a pool. (Video)
Not an everyday symbiosis
The Solon Park in front of the building on the busy Köpenicker Straße is elevated on excavation material. The rainwater that is not used for flushing toilets and irrigation is distributed here in trickle pools. In the park there is also a solar-powered charging station as a demonstration plant. Eight vectrix solar scooters can be plugged in to the outside wall and charged during working hours. Claus Herrmann from the Berlin-based office hochC Landschaftsarchitektur designed the roof landscape, the Solon Park in front of the house and the inner courtyards. The five courtyards follow a menu of his design ideas: “Himalaya birches on a green wavy landscape”, “slate ducts with a watering trough and winter cherries” or “restaurant garden with Mediterranean flair” are just some of the titles.
Thus design and function of the open spaces have been intensively integrated into the ecological and architectonic overall concept of the building, not an everyday symbiosis. 
Falk Jaeger
is an architectural historian and critic in Berlin.
Translation: Heather Moers
Copyright: Goethe-Institut e. V., Online-Redaktion
August 2009
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