Croma-Pharma Leobendorf Offices, Headquarters Building Austria, Architecture Images

Croma-Pharma Leobendorf Offices

Croma-Pharma Gesellschaft M.B.H., Pharmaceutical Company HQ in Austria design by querkraft

23 Dec 2017

Croma-Pharma Leobendorf Offices in Austria

Architects: querkraft

Location: Leobendorf, Austria

Croma-Pharma Headquarters Building

querkraft complets flexible and open office concept for Croma-Pharma

Photos below © Peter Podpera

Between art and working world

The firm is characterised by a highly dynamic growth of its departments, which is quite contrary to the traditional cellular structure for workplaces in traditional office plans. querkraft challenges this situation with an entirely open spatial concept.

Office and work zones are flexibly planned on two storeys. A specifically developed modular type of furniture enables the set-up of protected quiet zones and communication spaces. The open spatial plan was additionally supported by a precise “non-directional” structuring of the suspended acoustic ceiling panels.

The top floor is also designed as flexible plateau, whereby an open, extendable facilities and function space transits smoothly into the pavilion-type arrangement of the CEO’s office, but is also completely separable from it.

Focus on community

A further key focus of the planning was on easily accessible communal zones that are accentuated by a special colour scheme, fostering internal communication. In addition, a spacious keep-fit room for employees was set up in the basement. Likewise on this floor is the canteen, which opens up onto an atrium situated in front outside and also to the ground floor placed above it, thus bequeathing it a bright and friendly restaurant character.

Photos below © Hertha Hurnaus

Concept and art

Artist and colour theorist Ingo Nussbaumer used his “circumscribing” work “Inkarnat” – “Flesh” – to relate conceptionally to aesthetic dermatology, in reference to the pharmaceutical company’s specialisation. “Inkarnat” in German designates the skin tone and skin colour in the visual arts. His artwork manifests an expansive use of the colour palette used for this in classical painting.

The Austrian artist Esther Stocker has conceived a mural to adorn the main vertical access that seems to cancel out all the laws of geometry and thus attain a visual dissolution of the space.

Form and rhythm

The building’s volume is extremely unadorned and compact. Varying join thicknesses and Alucobond elements of different widths enliven the parapets of the curtain wall with a vertical rhythm.

Einem poetischen Pragmatismus folgend, widmet sich das 1998 gegründete Architekturbüro querkraft Projekten und Prozessen, in deren Mittelpunkt stets der Mensch steht. Im Schaffensfokus des Wiener Büros, das heute rund 30 MitarbeiterInnen zählt, stehen adaptierbare Strukturen, die dem Menschen Raum und Freiheit geben sollen. Querdenken bestimmt dabei maßgeblich die Arbeitsweise von querkraft, während Empathie und Neugier die Architekten durch den Entwurfsprozess begleiten.

Mit höchst möglicher Effizienz werden emotionale wie simple Lösungen geschaffen, die einen zusätzlichen Mehrwert für ihre NutzerInnen erzeugen. Eine zentrale Rolle in den Entwürfen von querkraft spielt zudem der Glaube an Langlebigkeit und langfristige Veränderungen. Nachhaltigkeit wird durch flexible Nutzungsszenarien mitgedacht. Für den Erfolg von querkraft sprechen zahlreiche Projekte, Wettbewerbe und Bauten diverser Größenordnung im nationalen und internationalen Kontext, die Authentizität, Charisma und eine starke Identität ausstrahlen.