A Building with Foresight and Perspectiveby Swetlana Stief | 19.07.2012

Auditorium and seminar building "L“

The view of the double A-level takers in 2013 and the abolition of compulsory military service are causing the local authorities of Paderborn headaches: How to cope with the continuously increasing request for university places and the pending shortage of space at the university? The high number of students is no temporary state, which calls for a sustainable financing plan for the university. Within the scope of the university modernization program, the new auditorium and seminar building "L“ of Paderborn university was built in August 2011 on the Southern campus area. The design was made by Dortmund-based firm Gerber Architekten.

Learning and feeling good

With its anthracite-colored façade of large fiber cement boards the building looks quite plain from outside. Through the compact shape the five-story cube appears like a monolithic sculpture at the heart of the campus. A glazed pole-disk construction at the Northwestern side takes care that the seminar rooms and offices inside the volumes are generously flooded with light.

With its deep orange-red color the lobby is a contrast to the façade. The warm colors create a cozy and relaxed atmosphere, inviting the students to spend time here. With its colorfulness the lobby shines through the generous glazing and literally invites to enter the building.

Wide stairs running from the outside to the inside occupy the terrain projection. It leads the visitor across the forecourt, emerging from the stair construction into the lobby. Inside, the stairs divides the lobby into two levels. On the top level exhibitions and events take place, the lower houses the cloakrooms and all the other side rooms, such as the restrooms. The lobby is the heart of the building, it serves as a distributor, as a recreation room and for representational purposes. It also connects the auditoriums with the seminar rooms. 

Auditorium wing and seminar wing are separated by a light slot in the roof area in a constructive, but also in a design-related way. This light slot also allows for an additional illumination of the interior.

The two auditoriums are equipped with extra galleries and provide space for all in all 800 students. Two large and two smaller seminar rooms make room for another 400 people. Apart from the open stair in the lobby various bridges connect the auditoriums and seminar rooms with each other. At the Northwestern side of the building there is also a connection to the opposing building.

Fit for the Future

With the new auditorium and seminar complex a crucial investment has been made in Paderborn. Thanks to its versatile usage possibilities, the eight million-building is an important milestone within the university’s modernization concept. Also university president Prof. Dr. Nikolaus Risch is happy with the work done by Gerber Architekten: ”Here, we have made a huge step and laid a solid base for high-quality teaching by building the new auditorium “L”. Thanks to this building we are able to face future challenges.“

Companies involved in the project:

GRAPHISOFT is a worldwide leading manufacturer of architectural software, selling its products all around the globe in over 100 countries and 25 language versions. At the largest CAD development department GRAPHISOFT have been developing products for 30 years now, used by meanwhile more than 100,000 users woldwide. Since 2007 GRAPHISOFT operates under the umbrella of the Nemetschek group. ARCHICAD is the first model-based 3D architectural software, made by GRAPHISOFT, being the first BIM software on the market that has strongly changed the way architects and planners work and communicate and having optimized these processes to a decisive degree.