Renovation of the interior design of the EVF administration building — Großeislinger Straße 28-34, 73033 Göppingen, Germany — 1,050 m² — March 2021 — Energieversorgung Filstal GmbH & Co. KG
Open and flexible working environment
Following a refurbishment by the Stuttgart-based planning office blocher partners, the existing building of Energieversorgung Filstal (EVF) in Göppingen takes on the communicative character of the new administration building to be opened in 2020: open, inviting and identity-forming.
Most administrative buildings are anonymous, sober and pragmatic. EVF is different. With the renovation of the existing building, the interior designers from blocher partners succeeded in creating a modern working environment with plenty of room for exchange as well as a staff restaurant with a high quality of stay. The old building enters into a symbiosis with the new building, which the architects and interior designers of the office have already completed at the beginning of 2020.
The challenge for the interior designers was to give the rooms openness and transparency, a feeling of airiness and flexibility. Once built and used as a residential building in the 1930s, the existing structures therefore had to be completely rethought and reorganized. About half of all the walls were removed for this purpose, so that the many, individual, closed rooms have been transformed into ones that are inviting, bright and communicative.
As in the new building, pure materials and subtle color accents reflect rationality and care, making the working environment appear wide and well organized. If the walls are white and the floors are dark carpet, oak furniture creates a warm contrast. Flexible walls that restructure the space as needed allow for mobile work - alone or in a team. Walls covered with magnets and pinboards enable active exchange among employees and create transparency. One of the few color accents: a desaturated green, which is used wherever there is room for communication - as a wall color in the canteen or as a staircase access to the tea kitchens.
The front façade in the area of the staff canteen on the first floor also seeks proximity to the new building: like a bracket, it combines in its materiality with the black anodized aluminum of the windows of the building opposite. An almost homely atmosphere is created inside by herb gardens on the window fronts, which also act as privacy screens. Benches in a vibrant shade of eggplant harmonize with the oak furniture and black pendant lights. Thanks to the sensitivity of the planners, the new and old buildings now present themselves as an invitation to customers and the promise of a high quality of stay for employees.
