MP09 Headquarter Uniopt Pachleitner Group in Graz, Austria by GSarchitects

Authors: Daniela Gojic, Michael Gattermeyer and Brigitte Spurej-Jammernegg

An architectonic punctuation at an exposed site of the city – a new and distinctive Entree to the city – a future oriented potential for development for the whole area.

MP09 Headquarter Uniopt Pachleitner Group

• Architectural office: GSarchitects ZT-GmbH
• Client: Dr. Michael Pachleitner Privatstiftung
• Site area: 10 940 m²
• Built up area: 17 054 m²
• Net area: 14 438 m²
• Project: 2006
• Completed: 2010
• Costs: 32.000.000

MP09 Headquarter Uniopt Pachleitner Group

Putting a company into the spotlight means transforming a philosophy into architecture. The ‘black panther’s does not only recount the story of the company but he emotionalises, he describes a vision and makes it physically and sculpturally ascertainable. Where Design and shape evolve, ideas emerge and become manifest in mass. Elegant and smooth, the ‘black Panther’s composes eagerness and speed to the urban architecture. His watchful eyes attend the street – movement and silhouette merge in the dance of the forces and the night.

MP09 Headquarter Uniopt Pachleitner Group

The office-building MP09, named after the owner of the firm, Michael Pachleitner,also called Black Panther, was intended as a landmark to the city-entrance of Graz.

MP09 Headquarter Uniopt Pachleitner Group

In 2006 the Pachleitner Group, which specialises in the design and marketing of spectacles and jewellery and Wegraz, (Graz-based company for urban renewal and refurbishment), set up competitions for an office and hotel building, as well as a headquarters building with a wing to be rented out, a flagship store and restaurant. Both projects established 2006 at a 2stepped competition among alltogether 9 offices decided unanimously by the jury. During the competition phase the client offices photographs of airplanes, ships and cars that expressed the feeling he wanted the building to convey.

MP09 Headquarter Uniopt Pachleitner Group

We derived from them the guiding idea of a crouching black panther, poised ready to spring, which provided a metaphor that accurately describes both building parts and which committed them to a goal: to create an appearance that would be both powerful and elegant. The detail planning for the project, and the scheduled completion date was started immediately afterwards. Construction of the 32-million euro project began in summer 2007, it was completed in May 2010: a free-standing building in a setting defined in very diverse ways by the UPC arena, ice sports stadium, Murpark, housing blocks and single-family houses. It is located directly on the Liebenau ring-road, which has a high volume of traffic and is a source of emissions, on an approximately triangular-shaped site that originally sloped to the southwest. The main part of this provocatively conspicuous office building contains the headquarters of a local company designing eyeglasses and jewellery and distributing them worldwide.

MP09 Headquarter Uniopt Pachleitner Group

Its a hard shaped sculpture covered with a black glass facade erected over a concrete base develops from a compact tail to a more and more resolving head cantelevering towards the city. The different directions of the building structure are retrieved in the inside structure of the spaces. From almost every position there are vistas through the whole building to the outdoor spaces. A special quality of the building evolves out of the individually designed technical solutions concerning the facade, partition walls, doors, staircases and many other components. Accurate details and few colors in various surfaces and materials define the interior. Even the whole furniture was custom-made by the architects and is consequently congruent to the architecture.

MP09 Headquarter Uniopt Pachleitner Group

The desired expression of concentrated tension and dynamism, amplified by long window strips, suits the company’s philosophy that enabled a small family business from the post-war years to develop into a company of global reach.

MP09 Headquarter Uniopt Pachleitner Group

Facade

The closed outer skin of the panther is covered with a curtain wall facing with air space and black glass facade. To give a glazed, homogeneous outer skin look,  we recommend the  STO Verotec glass facade.  The black toughened safety glass plates are holohedral glued to supporting plate; thereby the fixations are not visible. STO Verotec facade is a black glass curtain wall facing with air space facade system and it persists of a sheathing element, thermal insulation and a substructure. Between these curtain wall facings and the mineral rock wool remains a circulation air space. In this way it becomes a structural-physical optimal and thin wall mounting. By this holohedral agglutination of the toughened safety glass plates to supporting plate are made extensive large- scale glass elements without visible fixations.

MP09 Headquarter Uniopt Pachleitner Group

Philosophy GSarchitects

Without art, the human soul which sets us apart from other beings, would starve. art is the mental food for our soul. what makes art outstanding is its demand on sensibility. required not only of the artists but, also of those, who interact with it. the heart of an architectural project is the content, the idea. art gives the project the body, thoughts that are free to reach unforseen dimensions. we accept the rules, norms and requirements for utility that are the framework of architecture. however, the ideas and their evolution are exciting adventures with each new project.

MP09 Headquarter Uniopt Pachleitner Group

Tthe beginning is always a sketch. the sketch as threedimensional modell of thoughts is the beginning and the collection of thoughts and feelings. she tells us everything we are looking for and accompanies the project throughout like a red thread.

The shape and the details are eternaly changeable, but the content, the idea which is behind, is the unchangeable in architecture. thats the way we understand it.

That’s why for us its important to have partners who develop these ideas together with us to realise them in this mind.

MP09 Headquarter Uniopt Pachleitner Group

MP09 Headquarter Uniopt Pachleitner Group

MP09 Headquarter Uniopt Pachleitner Group

MP09 Headquarter Uniopt Pachleitner Group

MP09 Headquarter Uniopt Pachleitner Group

MP09 Headquarter Uniopt Pachleitner Group

MP09 Headquarter Uniopt Pachleitner Group

MP09 Headquarter Uniopt Pachleitner Group

MP09 Headquarter Uniopt Pachleitner Group

MP09 Headquarter Uniopt Pachleitner Group

MP09 Headquarter Uniopt Pachleitner Group

Tags: Austria, Graz

Category: Commercial Building

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