KKA (Kjellgren Kaminsky Architecture) designed a new office building for the steel manufacturer, Lecor. The building is situated in Kungälv, Sweden which is 10 kilometers north of Gothenburg. Lecor builds advanced steel constructions and of course they like to show their skills in their own building. This combined with the opportunity of creating a landmark building visible for the nearby highway has been the starting points of KKA’s design process. Building is planned to commence during 2011. More images and project description after the break.
The building, which houses the Lecor headquarters, includes offices, dining area/kitchenette, meeting rooms, a library and changing rooms. KKA worked with materials, colors and textures in various ways that can be associated with the steel industry and its traditions. The colors remain mostly in a soft pastel scale and white shades as they have followed the principle to “drape” the whole room in one and the same color.
OUTSIDE
The building is clad in dark gray steel plates in a repetitive pattern. To emphasize the factory function of steel production, the design allows some parts/rooms to shoot out of the facade in the form of glass cubes sealed in a steel frame. On the first floor, slides the main entrance as a windbreak with a steel frame colored in the pastel colors. On the second floor, adjacent to staff kitchen/dining area slides the “matkuben”(dining cube) in a clear yellow color. On top, across the building, the design further highlights and advertises the factory’s steel operations by placing a conference room and an outdoor terrace enclosed in a long bridge of the truss plant-steel construction. The lattice frame is metallic silver and the contained conference bridge is pastel green with large glass partitions along three walls. Up here you get a 270 degree view out towards the deep woods of Sweden.
INSIDE
Inside, the first floor of the building is divided into four main parts: the dining room at one end with forest view, then changing rooms for ladies and gentlemen, the main entrance with a spectacular staircase design of steel and an office area with a stairwell in glass and steel, with a yellow polished spiral staircase that is a “shortcut” up to the offices on the second floor.
The entrance hall is similar to a white sea with a large staircase in the spotlight. It has a core of sturdy, tall, painted steel walls with a specially designed pattern resembling the white glow from welding, in the form of perforated holes of various sizes that will be lighted both by artificial and by natural light from the skylight. The walls of various heights extended up to the second floor combined with their powerful visual expression become the design elements of a worthy entrance for visitors and employees.
In order to contrast and highlight the steps and everything that is white, the floor in the entrance hall is lined with black ceramic tiles in three sizes,presented in a specially designed pattern. This pattern continues even outside the entrance to catch the entrance hall outside, and to invite guests.
KKA selected certain places in order to mark them by “draping” them into a selected color. For example, the library on the second floor has a muted pink shade both on the carpet and the walls. Changing rooms, showers, toilets, and some pantries and kitchens are covered with tiles and ceramic tiles in pastel blue, dull army green, pastel green, light gray, pale yellow and crisp white shades, following once more the principle that the whole room has a single color on the floor and walls.
The second level has hardwood flooring in the box which is placed in different directions depending on the room features and to highlight the directions in the plan. Parquet floor varied even by the break in some parts, such as the cloakroom/toilet with a snow-white tiled floors and at the library with the pink carpet that stretches out into the corridor. The walls of the office rooms are made of glass, the facing walls and doors have a soft gray tone. ‘Matkuben’ has both inside and outside accent colors in a bright yellow tone and blue radiators. This is to get a bright and alert appearance of the building’s heart. Even the spiral staircase has the same bright yellow hue.
Team: Fredrik Kjellgren (KKA), Johan Brandström, Yvonne Lohmann, Joakim Kaminsky, Pamela Paredes, Jochim Haag, Alexandra Agipe, Margherita Castellani, Josefina Högström Project name: Lecor Client: Lecor Object: New office Size: 1100 sqm. Stage: Detail design
