Rheinpark Metropole, Cologne | Germany

Deconstruction of the exhibition halls of the former trade fair new building of two comb-shaped office buildings

The premises of the Cologne Fair are being disposed of to be replaced by two intertwined building complexes. Since the outfacing walls and the tower are protected as a monument, they will be renovated to subside as featuring elements of the overall premises. Within the area of 160,000 sqm gross floor area will be completed an area of 80,000 sqm as production and administration department headquaters for the Cologne broadcasting group RTL. The overall production area with highest acoustical and climatical requirements is about 17,000 sqm gross floor area. Beneath this are two television studios with 250 and 440 sqm, other production areas as MAZ, direction as well as editorial department and service areas. In the part of Cologne named Deutz, which is situated on the right embankment of the Rhine with a direct view to Cologne Cathedral, the Rheinpark Metropole is being created. The premises of the Cologne Fair dating from the 70’s are being disposed of to be replaced by two intertwined building complexes.

Since the outfacing walls and the tower are protected as a monument, they will be renovated to subside as featuring elements of the overall premises. Above and below ground level, the building totals 180000 sqm.The parking garage is to contain 1200 units. The prospective conditioning for all offices is cooled with ground water to save resources. Afterwards, the same ground water is fed back to refuel the cooling devices. Thus, the efficiency of the cooling facilities can be improved significantly, so as to require minimum electricity for the generation of cold.

Planning of a very big structured telecommunication and data network. Area-wide fire detecting observation and area-wide acoustic alerting. It exists a central interconnection for fire detecting observation and for the evacuation system based on fibre optic cable. Access control is planned with biometric distinguishing characteristics. The video control is based on full digital video surveillance (IP-Video).

Images: © Solveig Böhl (ZWP Ingenieur-AG)