Concert Hall for Nuremberg
Gilles Retsin Architecture and Studio Stephan Markus Albrecht
Timber is set to become one of the most significant construction materials of the 21st century, replacing its unsustainable steel and concrete counterparts. New technologies such as CLT (Cross Laminated Timber) while being more sustainable are also highly efficient and easy to automate. In recent years timber construction is becoming more and more present, mainly in housing developments. But can we also think about timber construction for more complex building types such as a concert hall ?
Chosen from 245 design entries Gilles Retsin and Stephan Markus Albrecht were among the 20 finalists in the international competition for the extension of the Meistersingerhalle in the city of Nuremberg, Germany. They teamed up with engineering consultancy Bollinger-Grohmann, climate engineers Transsolar and acoustic specialists Theatre Projects to design the world’s first fully prefabricated timber structure for a concert hall. Set in Bavaria, also known as one of Europes biggest forest and timber region, the timber could be sourced and manufactured locally. The design makes intensive use of algorithmic design, robotics and automation to prefabricate pixel-like modular elements off-site.
While the competition took place last year and the winner has been announced, recent debates about the use of concrete and the global climate crisis prompted the architects to make their proposal public as a manifesto for timber architecture and robotic prefabrication.
The proposal is not only environmentally friendly, with materials sourced from the immediate surroundings, it also turned out to be extremely cost efficient capitalising on new efficiencies and the potential for automation: The entire building is designed only consisting of repeating timber modules. In a digital workflow, these lego-like elements could be prefabricated as modular elements cut from CLT sheets in a factory setting, using automated technologies such as large CNC-machines and industrial robots, and are then shipped to the site for quick assembly. The building is entirely based on a repeating v-shaped timber section of 3m width by 1.2 m depth. This sections repeats both in the horizontal direction, to construct slabs, as in the vertical direction, to create walls and columns. This efficient workflow reduces the build time on site and ultimately delivered a proposal lower than the envisaged cost.
Not only the building structure is modular: The volume is designed as an extremely compact building, with the programme stacked three-dimensionally around the concert hall itself. In collaboration with climate consultants Transsolar, interior comfort was precisely tailored to minimize heat loss. All heating and ventilation was integrated in the hollow body of the modular v-shaped timber elements, which act as a three-dimensional circuit board.
The building is designed from the inside out, starting with the concert hall itself. The concert hall sets out the rhythm for the building, from where large timber frames start and cantilever outwards, framing the supporting spaces and lobbies. This structure can be conceptualised as a large table, which forms the outer box of the hall. Under this table, the inner box is positioned, following the same structural principles. The bare-bones timber structure is then finished with a softer, elegant and calm series of curved folds, formally akin to a curtain or textile. To organise the hundreds of generic timber modules into a functional building, an algorithmic procedure was developed based on a so called “voxel-space”, or a volumetric pixel. An algorithm assembles digital, v-shaped patterns into larger structural elements around the functional program of the concert hall. The voxels translate into repeating engineered timber plates, which then again form large modules that assemble into specific spatial patterns such as a wall, corner or ceiling. The resulting architectural space can then be understood as an engineered timber monolith, where walls, ceilings and columns follow the same organisational logic throughout the building. It sits as a compact pavilion in the surrounding park.
Gilles Retsin Architecture and Studio Stephan Markus Albrecht
Design Team: Gilles Retsin and Stephan Markus Albrecht with Nicola Schunter
Isaie Bloch, Kristof Gavrielidis, Johan Wijesinghe
Structural engineering: Bollinger + Grohmann (Paris, France): Klaas De Rycke, Hannah Franz
Fire consultants: Bollinger + Grohmann (Frankfurt, Germany): Frauke Schiffner
Landscape: Djao-Rakitine (London, England): Irene Djao-Rakitine, Federica Terenz
Climate Consultants: Transsolar (Stuttgart, Germany): Prof. Dipl.-Ing. Matthias Rudolph
Acoustics & theatre Consultants: Theatre Projects (Paris, France): Sebastien Jouan, Mark Stroomer
Mep consultants: pbs Ingenieure GmbH (Köngen, Germany): Robert Preußler
Cost Consultants: Wenzel+Wenzel (Stuttgart, Germany): Ina Karbon
Transport: Fichtner Water and Transportation (Stuttgart, Germany): Dr. Markus Weise
Renderings: Filippo Bolognese (Milan, Italy)
Client: City of Nuremberg (Bavaria, Germany)