ERSTE Campus, Vienna
2008

The practice was shortlisted in an international competition for the new 200,000 sqm headquarters for the Erste Bank Group in Vienna, Austria.

Erste Bank’s programme was extensive; re-configurable office space was required for 4,000 bank employees, all in close proximity to daylight, exterior views and opening windows, along with a conference centre and trading floor.
Our design articulates the mass of the building into three connected parts, which relate in size to the neo-classical buildings in the surrounding city, shape the external public spaces of the scheme between them and provide smaller scale locations in the interiors with exterior views in all directions.

The three parts of the interior are centred around three large glass roofed atriums, which are planted to reduce the temperature by a few degrees so that opening the windows will offer a sense of exteriority. Bridges cross the atria, passing through the tops of trees to connect each part of the offices to the lifts and communal meeting rooms and cafes.

The central part of the building, which has the greatest presence towards the station and Schweizer Garten, has facades made of bronze, while the facades of the blocks on either side are of red marble with the same proportions. Activity within the building is the primary public offering, with human life visible in the central atrium in the day, as Erste Bank intended, and illuminated planting made visible at night.


Visualisations: Lazslo Csutoras and Hayes Davidson
Model photographs: Erste Bank
Status: Shortlisted International Competition
Client: Erste Bank Vienna





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