The new KARL building – designed by David Chipperfield Architects – marks the beginning of a new era for the industrial wasteland of the former Mahag site on Karlstrasse. Where a car dealership once stood, an inner-city office building with 30,000 square metres of office space and an urban garden is currently under construction. High-quality materials combine light, air and nature to create a motivating working environment. Bright, open-plan offices with large window areas – glazed with Pilkington Suncool™ 70/40 solar control insulating glass – ensure that the rooms are flooded with daylight and protect the offices from overheating in summer.
The new KARL building stands alone in the urban space, although it is orientated towards Munich's perimeter block development. With this cubic block, Chipperfield has created a "self-sufficient microcosm" that places people at the centre and builds his vision for KARL on three pillars: a contemporary office structure, an urban garden courtyard designed as a place for communication and regeneration, and a reinterpretation of the original shed hall, which originally served as a workshop, as a reminiscence of the industrial past.
Communication is a top priority at KARL: The garden courtyard serves as a modern "village square", the Shedhalle as a meeting place and, of course, there are various networking areas in the offices. The basic square shape of the building allows for largely flexible, efficient floor plans for a wide variety of office typologies, depending on the use and letting situation. The result is customisable working environments that meet all the requirements of networked workplaces of the future. The office spaces are characterised by transparency and openness. With a clear room height of three metres and floor-to-ceiling glazing, KARL creates a quality of stay that is second to none. Employees' productivity and motivation, well-being and health are boosted by plenty of daylight and a good supply of fresh air. The part of the glass façade that can be opened up to the offices facing the inner courtyard extends the spatial experience with an exit to the outside and views of the green garden courtyard.
A prestigious façade
Prefabricated light grey concrete elements create an orderly system of two-storey, vertically accentuated frames, behind which the office façade recedes. This two-storey arrangement makes the office building appear smaller than it is. The rawness of the concrete stands in deliberate contrast to the transparency of the glass surfaces. The room-enclosing façade made of dark wood-aluminium profiles with opening windows forms a second, underlying level.
In contrast to the exterior façade, the courtyard façade is divided into storeys. The balconies in front strongly emphasise the horizontal. A mullion and transom façade made of floor-to-ceiling glass-wood-aluminium façade elements provides the "rhythmic" structure of the inner courtyard façade. The exterior and interior courtyard façades were manufactured by Schindler Fenster + Fassaden from Roding.
Solar control insulating glass for a pleasant indoor climate
The architects wanted neutral solar control insulating glass with high light transmission. In addition, the building physics required an overall energy transmittance of less than 40 %. Pilkington Suncool™ 70/40 triple solar control insulating glass manufactured by FLACHGLAS Wernberg was able to fulfil these requirements perfectly throughout the building and ensures a pleasantly temperate working environment. A total of 5000 square metres of glass were installed.
The glazing in the exterior façade combines the sun protection function with sound insulation. Towards the street and the neighbouring brewery, high sound insulation requirements of over 45 dB had to be considered. Towards the brewery, the sound insulation requirements were even 50 dB, which required a special triple insulated glass units with Pilkington Optiphon™ sound-insulating laminated glass. The IGU structure was: a 12 mm Pilkington Suncool Optiphon™ 70/40 made of heat strengthened glass on the outside, a 6 mm toughened glass in the midle, and a 10 mm Pilkington Optiphon™ made of heat strengthened glass on the inside. The various soundproof glass products in the building now ensure undisturbed working without noise pollution.
The KARL is a modern office world in the centre of Munich – characterised by timeless architecture, the quality of the selected materials, and a high sustainability standard with LEED Gold certification.