Cristoph Schlaich
Adidas Brandcenter in Herzogenaurach, Bavaria. RWTH Aachen (Germany)
Branding happens in a grey zone between public and private space. Architecture separates this branded space from the public space. It also is able to communicate corporate identity through its space and form.
The brandcenter produces and communicates a brand. The design uses the potentials of the closeness of the private (production) and the public (communication). This is to happen on a social, programmatic and spatial layer. The worldwide operating company adidas takes responsibility for a small part of public space in Bavaria and also uses it for advertising through events.
The World of Sports, the new headquarter of adidas, is divided into a public part, offering sport facilities, and a private area, the companies “brain”, which is closed and secret. The borders in between are to be invisible like in a zoo and are designed as ditches and such. The strategy of an continuous landscape blurs the border between public and corporate.
The design is located on the actual border, eliminates it programmatically and uses it spatial potential. On the one hand the formerly monofunctional building is enlivened by the intruding public, on the other hand the sport park gets an icon and is strengthened by additional programme and people.
The brandcenter is an iconographic object in the landscape and forms an freely arranged ensemble with the other buildings of the adidas campus. But the object also creates outdoor spaces and reacts precisely to its context. It roofs a sport field. A central space for all entrances and outdoor events is carved out. The façade of imprinted glass makes the building appearance change according to the viewpoint, weather and daytime. It may look closed and mysterious like a secret design studio or light and open like a public building.
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