Roche Tower (Building 1)

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Roche Tower (Building 1)
Roche Tower
Roche Tower (Building 1)
Roche Tower in September 2015
Basic data
Place: Basel , Switzerland
Construction time : May 9, 2012–2015
Opening: 18th September 2015
Status : completed
Architectural style : Modern
Architects : Herzog & de Meuron
Use / legal
Usage : office
Jobs : 2000
Room : variable
Owner : F. Hoffmann-La Roche AG
Client : F. Hoffmann-La Roche AG
Technical specifications
Height : 178 m
Depth: 20 m
Floors : 41
Usable area : 76,000 m²
Floor area : 83,000 m²
Enclosed space : 375,000 m³
Building material : Reinforced concrete, steel
Building-costs: 550 million francs
Safety: Earthquake-proof up to 6.9 on the Richter scale
Height comparison
Basel : 1. ( list )
Switzerland : 1. ( list )
address
Address: Grenzacherstr. 124
Post Code: 4070
City: Basel
Country: Switzerland

The Roche Tower (Building 1) , also Roche Tower , is a high-rise in the Swiss city ​​of Basel . The building is the headquarters of the pharmaceutical company Hoffmann-La Roche , which is also the owner and builder of the building. At 178 m, the Roche Tower clearly exceeds the 126-meter-high Prime Tower in Zurich , which was previously the tallest skyscraper in Switzerland . However, the tallest free-standing building in the country is still the St. Chrischona TV tower, which is only a few kilometers away from Basel, at 250 meters. The high-rise serves purely operational purposes and is not open to the public. The Roche Tower, designed by architects Herzog & de Meuron , was built as part of an extensive structural restructuring of the Basel headquarters, which will also include Building 2 , which is under construction at 205 meters, from 2021 .

history

Prehistory and planning

In September 2006, the corporate management of Hoffmann-La Roche presented a first high-rise project. The building, also planned by Herzog & de Meuron at the time and known as Twist 2 Spirals , was originally intended to be 163 meters high, later 154 meters. It should have the shape of a double helix and offer space for 2400 workplaces. It was planned to open in 2011. After several modifications, this project in the style of deconstructivism had to be abandoned in 2008 due to excessive investment costs - the construction project would have cost at least CHF 750 million - and functional requirements that could not be met.

Finally, in December 2009, a significantly revised project was presented. This new design was based on the modern design language of Otto Rudolf Salvisberg's architecture . The tower should have a strong horizontal structure through white concrete and dark window bands. At that time, the estimates for this new building were CHF 368 million. This revised design was moderately redesigned, which should make the high-rise appear “more subtle and symmetrical”. In particular, the stair-like steps on the west side have been revised. The horizontal bands also run parallel to the street and no longer protrude, which means that the structure fits better into the street . Instead of the dark window glasses, light ones should now be installed. Building 1, to be built in accordance with the Minergie standard, would be slightly higher and have a floor area of ​​76,000 m². It would have space for 2000 employees and an auditorium with 500 seats.

After the one-year project planning phase ended in December 2009 , planning could begin in January 2010. In November 2010 the development plan was approved, in October 2010 the building application and in February 2011 the building permit . At the location of the future high-rise, the older building 15 from Salvisberg was demolished from October 2010 to February 2011.

Construction work

In preparation for the construction work, “Building 15” was demolished between October 2010 and February 2011, and the new high-rise should be in its place. Because of the neighboring laboratories, this work had to be carried out with the lowest possible vibrations. With the granted building permit, excavation could then begin in February 2011 ; the foundation stone was laid on May 9, 2012 in the almost 22 meter deep excavation pit. The construction costs are now expected to amount to 550 million Swiss francs.

Because of the close proximity to the banks of the Rhine , a deep foundation was necessary, with 490 anchors and 389 piles protruding up to 50 meters into the ground. To protect the 63-meter-high neighboring building «Bau 52» to the west of the construction site and because of the groundwater , a watertight excavation had to be created and the groundwater level lowered at the same time . In order to ensure that the 18-storey “Building 52” designed by the architect Roland Rohn does not sit down as much as possible , extensive deformation calculations were carried out in advance using the finite element method . The construction company Marti was responsible for the building construction . The general planning was carried out by Drees & Sommer , the structural planning by the Stuttgart engineering office Weischede, Herrmann und Partner.

Construction progress 2014/15
January 12, 2014, the windshield can be seen in the top section
March 2, 2014
May 26, 2014
August 14, 2014
20th September 2014
November 1, 2014
22nd December 2014
March 14, 2015
April 19, 2015

The planning of the building stipulated that the shell should be completed in December 2014 , the opening was planned for the second half of 2015. After reaching the 100-meter mark in February 2014, its construction height exceeded that of the Zurich Prime Tower, which opened in 2011, in June 2014 . Overall, the structure grew by about one storey every month.

Around 450 people were involved in the construction work. In July 2014, it became known that 30 workers from a Polish subcontractor from Gdansk who had been hired for the facade work were being dumped . After a brief strike , an agreement is said to have been reached that also included an additional payment. Overall, the work on the facade cladding lasted from September 2013 to August 2015. At roughly the same time, the interior of the high-rise was completed in parallel.

On October 22, 2014, the Roche company specified an investment package worth 3 billion Swiss francs with which it intends to further strengthen the Roche site in Basel. In addition to research facilities, the company will further consolidate its more than a dozen locations, which have been spread across the city. To this end, another high-rise ( Building 2 ) should be ready for occupancy by 2021 for 1,700 office workplaces; With around 50 floors and 205 meters in height, it will surpass the previous Roche Tower. The construction 2 to be optically aligned on the Roche tower and stand on the opposite side of Grenzacherstrasse.

On November 27, 2014, the topping-out ceremony of the Roche Tower was celebrated after the shell had been completed . When it reached the full height of the skyscraper, the hydraulically controlled climbing crane reached a hook height of around 204 meters and the final height of the tower crane was 191.5 meters. This made it the tallest crane ever used in Switzerland. During the construction work, the Wolff crane 7532.16 was firmly connected to the skyscraper shell in up to six places and worked its way up without scaffolding. The parts of the facade that the crane lifted weighed up to two tons. Another compact luffing crane on the west side of the high-rise construction site was able to swing past the structure with its 45-meter-long boom that could be set up steeply.

Climbing formwork enclosed the inner core of the high-rise building, in which the load-bearing structure of the floors was reinforced and concreted. Until the concrete had hardened, which took around ten weeks, the individual floors were supported by means of struts . A second work platform followed several floors, which was secured and shielded by a windshield all around. One of the construction site's technical centers was also located under the protection of the windshield.

In mid-April 2015, the dismantling of the climbing crane, which took a few days, was completed. The façade elements that were cut out because the crane was anchored to the high-rise were installed at the end of August / beginning of September.

Since opening

The Roche Tower was officially opened on September 18, 2015 . The approximately 2000 employees gradually moved into the building by spring 2016. The building was fully occupied in May 2016. Since July 2016, the interested public has been guided through the building in small groups of visitors.

In February 2017 there was icing on the outer facade. For security reasons, Grenzacherstrasse was partially closed at the building. After a long period of cold weather, ice came off the facade as the temperature rose. One suspects the good insulation of the building as the reason for this.

description

Location and surroundings

Roche site at the bend of the Rhine in Basel (2015)

The Roche tower is located in Kleinbasel on the premises of the pharmaceutical company Roche at 257  m above sea level. M. The area is bounded by the Wettsteinallee and the Rhine and is interrupted in the southern third of Grenzacherstrasse. In this southern section is the Roche Tower, which replaced the 80-year-old so-called Building 15 . To the east is the Solitudepark with the Tinguely Museum on the banks of the Rhine . The Roche Tower is located about 1500 meters as the crow flies east of the Basel city center and can be seen from many parts. Both the railway line to Badischer Bahnhof and the A 2 run just a few hundred meters from the high-rise.

Due to the geographic features of the Basle Bay, the Roche Tower can also be seen from far beyond the city limits. Apart from the surrounding mountain ranges, it can also be seen from elevated points in the Birs or Wiesental, for example.

Architecture and data

Roche Tower from Grenzacherstrasse, in the foreground the "Building 52"

The tower, which is like a staircase towards the west, tapers towards the top, has three basement and 41 upper floors - with room heights between 2.90 and 3.48 meters. With the exception of the top two floors, two floors each form a step. The east facade, on the other hand, only has a slight gradation every three floors, while the north and south facades are vertical and fit into the street alignment of Grenzacherstrasse. The mass of the Roche Tower is 210,000 tons. The excavation amounted to 130,000 tons. 56,000 cubic meters of concrete, around a third of which was underground, and 12,000 tons of reinforcement were used for the high-rise.

The entire structure is kept simple, with white facade elements. The architecture is based on the modern architectural language of Otto Rudolf Salvisberg , who was the main architect of the pharmaceutical company in the 1930s and, in addition to zoning plans, also designed many buildings at the headquarters in Basel. The length at ground floor level is 94 meters, the width 37 meters, which results in a floor area of ​​3500 square meters. On the fourth floor there is a large terrace that forms a connection with the lower unit. This is reserved for special use by the auditorium on the 2nd floor and the staff restaurant on the 3rd floor. Rooms with superordinate functions were accommodated on these first floors. The technical center is located on the three basement floors as well as on the 18th and 39th floors. The gross floor area above ground is 74,200 square meters, the building volume above ground is 324,000 cubic meters; in total it is 375,000 cubic meters.

Below the cantilevered auditorium, which covers a spacious plaza above the entrance area , there is a stone sculpture around 6.5 meters high and weighing 60 tons. This work Rock on Top of Another Rock , in which two massive stones made of belts are stacked, comes from the artist duo Peter Fischli and David Weiss .

On three levels of the high-rise building there is a light unit for the air traffic control lights at each corner . The eight lighting units on the two lower levels are permanently lit, while the safety lighting on the edge of the roof flashes. On the northern part of the high-rise roof there is a hoist with a rotating telescopic boom, which is used, among other things, for maintenance work on the high-rise. The highest facade elements above the highest floor represent a screen protection. They form a parapet behind which the crane and the cantilevered supply shaft can be hidden.

Due to the location of Basel on the Upper Rhine Graben, Roche, as the client, expressed the desire to strengthen the earthquake protection of the high-rise building far beyond the normative requirements. Usually an earthquake with a return period of 475 years is used. The Roche Tower was designed to withstand stronger earthquakes with a return period of 2000 years. For this purpose, the combined pile and slab foundation of the comparatively narrow high-rise was reinforced.

Basel - Roche Tower with city view at dusk.jpg
Basel - Roche Tower - September 2015 4.jpg
Basel - Roche Tower - September 2015 9.jpg
Basel - Roche Tower - September 2015 8.jpg
Basel - Roche Tower - September 2015 10.jpg
Views of the Roche Tower (from left to right): Roche Tower with the Rhine, south-west view, strong soffit, facade detail and main entrance

Interior design and technology

Roche Tower at dusk with air traffic control lights

In addition to a staff restaurant for 350 people, a cafeteria with 100 seats and a viewing terrace on the 38th floor, the Roche tower houses an auditorium with a capacity for up to 500 seats. This is characterized by a variable design ability in order to be available for a large number of events.

The office landscape is characterized by a mix of individual and group offices , which can also be variably adapted to requirements. For example, every employee can individually regulate light, blinds and temperature at their workplace. As part of the Minergie construction method, the house was fully equipped with LED lighting technology - over 10,000 throughout the building - and presence and motion detectors. There are so-called communication zones (called “studios” within the building) in different parts of the high-rise office building, which create open spaces across floors and enable vertical communication. Some of these communication zones also include balconies , which expand the lounge area accordingly, and run over two or three floors and face the west or east side.

The Roche Tower has two elevator shafts . One leads from the basement levels to the 17th floor. Another runs continuously and connects the basement floors with the floors from the 17th floor. This second elevator shaft enables a change on the 17th floor. The Schindler elevators transport passengers at speeds of up to 6 meters per second. A total of 14 elevators operate in the high-rise. The Roche tower is heated exclusively using the waste heat from the company's own premises and cooling is carried out with the help of the groundwater . For this reason, the Minergie standard is clearly exceeded, among other things. With a primary energy requirement of 80.2 kWh / (m 2 a) for heating , cooling , ventilation and light, the Roche Tower is in a very good position compared to other high-rise buildings and also meets the criteria for a green building . After a two-year monitoring phase, Roche intends to have improvements to the building and system operation carried out.

reception

Despite the efforts to bring the strikingly high structure into line with the simple shapes of Salvisberg, the first assessment at the time of completion of the architectural effect in the cityscape was rather critical. The Roche Tower is almost twice as high as the 105-meter-high Messeturm , the tallest building in Basel to date, around 100 meters higher than the residential and commercial buildings of the 1960s and 1970s, and is ten times higher than the average city. In the year of completion, the high-rise looked like a solitaire in the Basel cityscape.

The art historian and research associate at the ETH Zurich's Wohnforum, Klaus Spechtenhauser, describes the fact that experts and the general public are mostly perplexed and quietly resigned to the building of the tower. An actual public discourse never took place, one was confronted with the enormous scale and the display of economic potency was almost frightening. The former Basel master builder Carl Fingerhuth is also critical of the lack of discourse on the Roche Tower. The lack of urban embedding testifies to the arrogance of the builders, who only monumentalized an exemplary sign of their power with the building.

The art critic Karen N. Gerig recognizes the purpose and necessity of the Roche Tower, but describes its high altitude as a memorial that Basel cannot grow any further and how dependent the city is on the money of the local pharmaceutical industry because it does not outside their cantonal borders. It would have been stupid not to allow the building, but that is precisely why it is a sign of resignation and simply not beautiful.

The culture editor Till Briegleb is even more drastic in his criticism. When designing the Roche Tower, the human scale was lost, he wrote in art - Das Kunstmagazin . He compares the shape with the utopian plan of some British architects to design the Alsterzentrum in Hamburg at the end of the 1960s with a large number of similar high-rises. The massive, eye-catching structure would stand in too strong a contrast to the small-scale structure of Kleinbasel that has grown over the centuries. The Roche Tower is therefore nothing more than a boring and tasteless “chemical saw” of Babylonian proportions.

In contrast, Andreas Janser, the curator of the Museum für Gestaltung Zürich , finds the design of the workplaces in the Roche Tower very convincing and the skyscraper as a whole is a success. He explains the negative attitude with the fact that high-rise buildings in Europe are always foreign objects. The Swiss urban development and planning historian Angelus Eisinger also thinks that the skyscraper debate can only be identified from the silhouette and the height of the structure, falls short. Rather, the skyscraper must build bridges to the city. Eisinger sees the worldwide visibility and attention that the Roche Tower emanates for Basel as well as the positive effects in Roche's operational processes. In addition, he sees no added value for the city, but that is not necessarily a question of the high-rise building itself. Because the Novartis Campus also has little relationship with the city, although it is a piece of the city that is perfectly staged in terms of urban planning and aesthetics.

Around 130 residents in the Wettstein district have formed an association and want to make their demands on Roche and the city of Basel heard. Due to the relative proximity of the skyscraper, they are affected by greater traffic and long shadows every day. Since the higher planned high-rise building 2 and four other high buildings will exacerbate the problem in the next few years, the association is demanding financial compensation for the residents.

literature

  • Angelus Eisinger : The Roche Tower in Basel. In: Hochparterre , 9/2010, ISSN  1422-8742 , pp. 34-35. ( online )
  • The Roche Tower: are 175 meters too high for Basel? In: Hochparterre , 23/2010, ISSN  1422-8742 , pp. 6-7. ( online )
  • Rahel Marti: Kneel in front of the skyscraper. The discussion about the 180 meter high Roche Tower is difficult for Basel. In: Hochparterre , 4/2010, ISSN  1422-8742 . ( online )
  • Bauer, Mösle, Schwarz: Green Building. Guide to sustainable building. Springer Berlin 2013, ISBN 978-3-642-38296-3 , pp. 214-227.
  • Building + Economy. Basel city. Basel-Country. Wirtschafts- und Verlagsgesellschaft, ISBN 978-3-944820-05-7 , pp. 18-19. ( online )
  • Curt M. Mayer: Energy efficiency at the Roche Tower in Basel. In: Haustech , 27/2014, ISSN  1015-9894 , pp. 24-30. ( here online )
  • Alexander Hosch: Architecture Guide Switzerland, the best buildings of the 21st century. Callwey, Munich 2015, ISBN 978-3-7667-2149-5 , p. 254.
  • Ernst, Erb, Frank, Herrmann: an innovative step upwards. Roche Verlag, Basel 2016, ISBN 978-3-907770-95-5 .

Web links

Commons : Roche Tower  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Andrea Drescher: The tower of Basel. Badische Zeitung , September 8, 2008, accessed on September 25, 2015 .
  2. ↑ Peter Knechtli : «No. 1 »: Roche aims higher than anyone else. OnlineReports.ch, September 14, 2006, accessed on August 12, 2013 .
  3. ↑ a b Victor Weber: Dense building taken to extremes. Sunday newspaper , September 28, 2014, accessed on September 25, 2015 .
  4. ↑ a b Herzog & de Meuron - New Roche Building - Basel ( Memento from June 23, 2011 in the Internet Archive )
  5. ^ High-rise feeling in Basel. New design for Roche Tower from HdM. BauNetz , December 21, 2009, accessed October 15, 2015 .
  6. ↑ (Fig. 1): Visual comparison of the old and the new design. BauNetz, accessed on September 23, 2015 .
  7. ↑ More subtle and symmetrical. New plans from HdM for high-rise buildings in Basel. BauNetz, December 16, 2010, accessed on September 23, 2015 .
  8. ↑ a b Roche presents its new main building "Bau 1" in Basel. (No longer available online.) Hoffmann-La Roche , December 17, 2009, archived from the original on September 25, 2015 ; accessed on September 24, 2015 .
  9. ^ Construction 1. New high-rise office building in Basel. Hoffmann-La Roche, September 18, 2015, accessed on September 28, 2015 .
  10. ^ Building 1 , accessed on April 21, 2020
  11. ↑ An innovative step upwards , p. 12.
  12. ↑ An innovative step upwards , p. 12.
  13. ↑ Christian Kelleter, Alexandra Mrzigod: excursion report . (PDF) Karlsruhe Institute of Technology , June 17, 2011, accessed on September 24, 2015 .
  14. ^ Foundation stone in Basel: Roche high-rise by Herzog / de Meuron. BauNetz, May 24, 2012, accessed on February 6, 2014 .
  15. ↑ Laurent Pitteloud: Construction pit and foundation of the tallest house in Switzerland (Roche Building 1). (PDF) Geotechnics Switzerland, September 13, 2012, p. 3 , accessed on September 25, 2015 .
  16. ↑ a b c d Laurent Pitteloud, René Iten, René Kress: Lived interdisciplinarity in a major project. (PDF) In: Mailing. Gruner AG Basel, 2014, pp. 21-23 , accessed on September 25, 2015 .
  17. ↑ Joel Gernet: The Roche Tower will soon go up. Basler Zeitung , February 10, 2012, accessed on September 30, 2015 .
  18. ↑ office tower ROCHE-Tower - Basel. wh-p Ingenieure, accessed September 30, 2015 .
  19. ↑ One meter away from the Swiss record. TagesWoche , June 5, 2014, accessed on August 14, 2014 .
  20. ↑ Basel Roche Tower soon towers over Zurich Prime Tower. wirtschaft.ch, April 8, 2014, accessed on August 11, 2014 .
  21. ^ Façade builders strike on the Roche Tower. Basler Zeitung , July 2, 2014, accessed on August 6, 2014 .
  22. ↑ Record wage dumping at the Roche Tower. Unia , July 1, 2014, archived from the original on July 27, 2014 ; accessed on August 6, 2014 .
  23. ↑ An innovative step upwards , p. 13.
  24. ↑ Roche is investing in the future in Basel. Hoffmann-La Roche , October 22, 2014, accessed October 23, 2014 .
  25. ↑ Aiming high: the Roche Tower celebrates its topping-out ceremony. (No longer available online.) HHP Berlin, November 27, 2014, archived from the original on April 20, 2015 ; Retrieved April 14, 2015 .
  26. ↑ The kings of construction sites are getting stronger and stronger. (No longer available online.) Schweizerbauwirtschaft.ch, November 28, 2012, archived from the original on September 25, 2015 ; accessed on September 24, 2015 .
  27. ↑ a b Wölffe involved in the construction of the tallest building in Switzerland. (No longer available online.) Wolffkran , April 30, 2015, archived from the original on September 25, 2015 ; accessed on September 24, 2015 .
  28. ↑ Workplace at a height of 192 meters. Badische Zeitung , January 3, 2015, accessed on April 20, 2015 .
  29. ↑ An innovative step upwards , p. 71.
  30. ↑ An innovative step upwards , p. 73.
  31. ↑ Roche opens the tallest building in Switzerland. Handelszeitung , September 18, 2015, accessed on September 20, 2015 .
  32. ↑ Patrick Künzle: The tallest building in Switzerland has opened. Swiss radio and television , September 18, 2015, accessed on September 18, 2015 .
  33. ↑ Stefan Schuppli: The Roche Tower receives a visitor concept. Basellandschaftliche Zeitung , April 21, 2015, accessed on September 18, 2015 .
  34. ↑ Telebasel : Public may visit Roche Tower , article from July 2, 2016, accessed on July 12, 2016
  35. ↑ SRF: Icing on the Roche Tower clarified , article from February 2, 2017, accessed on August 15, 2017
  36. ^ Curt M. Mayer: Energy efficiency at the Roche Tower in Basel. (PDF) Haustech, p. 2 , accessed on October 1, 2015 .
  37. ↑ Green Building. Guide to Sustainable Building , p. 220.
  38. ^ Building 1: New high-rise office building in Basel. (PDF) Hoffmann-La Roche, accessed on May 4, 2015 .
  39. ↑ An innovative step upwards , p. 18.
  40. ↑ Schindler wins order for new Roche headquarters in Basel. (No longer available online.) Schindler , December 13, 2011, archived from the original on October 1, 2015 ; accessed on September 30, 2015 .
  41. ↑ Roche opens new office building Building 1 in Basel. Roche press release, September 18, 2008, accessed on September 28, 2015 .
  42. ↑ Green Building. Guide to sustainable building , p. 227.
  43. ↑ The Roche Tower: are 175 meters too high for Basel? In: Hochparterre , 23/2010, ISSN  1422-8742 , pp. 6-7. ( here online ).
  44. ↑ Matthias Zehnder : The Roche Tower can be seen from everywhere - an optical illusion? bz Northwestern Switzerland , December 4, 2014, accessed October 7, 2015 .
  45. ↑ Klaus Spechtenhauser: Accents with measure. Cantonal monument preservation Basel-Stadt. Annual report 2014, 2014, accessed October 15, 2015 .
  46. ↑ Carl Fingerhuth : The message of the tower. Tages-Anzeiger , September 19, 2015, accessed on September 23, 2015 .
  47. ↑ Karen N. Gerig: The Roche Tower is necessary, but not beautiful. TagesWoche , October 24, 2014, accessed April 20, 2015 .
  48. ↑ Till Briegleb in art - The art magazine : tear it off again immediately! ( Memento from June 29, 2017 in the Internet Archive )
  49. ↑ High-rise buildings in Europe are always foreign objects. Berner Zeitung , September 18, 2015, accessed on September 23, 2015 .
  50. ↑ Angelus Eisinger : The Roche Tower in Basel. In: Hochparterre , 9/2010, ISSN  1422-8742 , pp. 34-35. ( here online )
  51. ↑ Fabio Vonarburg: Roche Tower gives residents “a daily solar eclipse”. bz Basel , April 21, 2015, accessed on April 21, 2015 .

Coordinates: 47 ° 33 '31.7 "  N , 7 ° 36' 28.1"  E ; CH1903:  six hundred twelve thousand seven hundred thirty-four  /  267580

This article was added to the list of excellent articles on November 11, 2015 in this version .