Dannien Roller Architekten + Partner: Winner of World Design Awards 2023. Dannien Roller Architekten + Partner’s conversion of the neoclassic residential and commercial building with a single-storey extension in Tübingen’s historic centre in 2019/2020 is a successful example of architecture integrating into historical context while retaining autonomy of style.

A transparent windowed façade leads into the architecture practice’s reception area with interlaced apertures through open timber frames offering glimpses of different levels in the open office landscape. Created by lowering the old building’s floor slab, the mezzanine houses technical installations and bathrooms. The new building, where the library and offices are located among other things, impresses with its bare masonry aesthetic. Wall surfaces in the old building feature unfinished, solid-coloured plaster. Colour accents such as the brass railings, silver curtains and the neon yellow kitchen counter are used to powerful effect.

The angled new building contrasts with the rear of the old building with its modern architecture language, yet forms a natural, integral part of the existing topography. The open inner courtyard emulates a typical element of the Tübingen urban structure. Unfinished plaster in restrained colours matches the natural stone walls in the surrounding area. The green roofscape and tiers contrast with the sculptural building structure, respectfully embedded into terraced slope along the Schulberg.

Project Details
Firm
Dannien Roller Architekten + Partner

Architect
Dannien Roller Architekten + Partner

Project Name
Conversion and renovation of the listed Local, Probate and Guardianship Court building

World Design Awards Category
Public Space Built

Project Location
Tuebingen

Team
Maren Dannien, Matthias Roller, Simon Kirsch

Country
Germany

Photography ©Credit
©Dietmar Strauß, Besigheim

Dannien Roller Architekten + Partner: Architecture is not objective, but influenced by processes, requirements, budgets and cultural-spatial conditions. Our early cooperation with the client creates a qualitative coherence between the construction project, urban integration, space, form and material. This not only creates an unmistakable building culture, but also a high level of recognition.

Our focus is on the workplace: the place where we spend most of our lives awake. Although we live in a world that is becoming more and more mobile from day to day, administration and production, research and teaching, education and training, and work, are linked to physical places. This topos requires both material and emotional criteria, to which we respond creatively, innovatively and with outstanding design quality.