District Office Esslingen

Sustainable implementation was the top priority for the District Office as the client; to this end, the construction project followed a specially developed concept for circular construction: during the systematic demolition of the existing building, the building materials were, as a first step, separated as effectively as possible and processed for reuse on site (urban mining). In the second stage, during the turnkey construction of the new building, recycled building materials were specifically used: for example, a significant proportion of the structural shell was cast using resource-saving recycled concrete (R-concrete). A material-ecological component catalogue was drawn up for the new administration building, which lists all key components and assigns the materials used to them, including their building biology properties. 

More than 90 per cent of the construction waste from the old building is recycled 
Prior to the start of construction in February 2023, the recycling specialist Heinrich Feeß GmbH & Co. KG systematically gutted and dismantled the old Esslingen District Office building. To optimise the recycling of construction waste, the demolition was carried out in accordance with a material flow analysis drawn up in advance, which details the quantities and their recycling or disposal pathways, broken down by building material. More than 90 per cent of the materials recovered from the old building were suitable for recycling and have been reused. 

• The approximately 31,500 tonnes of concrete from the old building were crushed and screened directly on site (up to 1,800 tonnes per day). The concrete aggregate produced in this way was then reprocessed at the Feeß wet sorting plant in Kirchheim as an aggregate for recycled concrete and delivered to nearby concrete plants.
• In neighbouring Plochingen, the metal processing company Kaatsch processed a total of more than 1,220 tonnes of metals from the old building for reuse – ranging from reinforcing steel and aluminium windows to copper cables.
• The company Remondis in Zweibrücken recycled around 400 tonnes of plasterboard and gypsum boards from the old district administration building for further use in building construction. 

From planning to operation
Once demolition was complete, the project team from ZÜBLIN’s Stuttgart office and ZÜBLIN subsidiary Wolfer & Goebel Bau GmbH constructed the new administration building between Merkelpark and the banks of the Neckar. A two-part building complex in the shape of a horizontal figure of eight is connected to the existing administrative tower block on two levels. The two polygonal structures, with four to five upper floors and two basement levels, offer a total net floor area of 33,000 square metres, on which 675 workstations for administrative staff from eleven departments are to be set up in future. The airy two-storey foyer will in future be dominated by large-scale, colourful installations by the renowned artist and sculptor Tobias Rehberger, who was born in Esslingen. 

Text: © Strabag | modifiziert