KfW Westarkade, Frankfurt am Main, Germany

Object Type
Office Buildings

Client
KfW Kreditanstalt für Wiederaufbau, Frankfurt am Main

Architects
Sauerbruch Hutton Generalplanungsgesellschaft mbH, Berlin

Completion
2010

Expertises
Room Acoustics
Building Acoustics
Thermal Insulation & Energy Performance Calculation
Sound Isolation

The KfW Westarkade by Sauerbruch Hutton is one of the world's first office skyscrapers that annually requires less than 100 kilowatt-hours of primary energy per square meter for its operation. In addition to a conference center, the new building offers office space for up to 700 employees of the KfW banking group. In 2011, the skyscraper was awarded "Best Tall Building Europe."

The goal was to create a building with excellent energy performance while maintaining very high user comfort. A key factor in the low energy demand is the double-skin facade with its weather-independent natural ventilation, high thermal insulation value, and effective sun protection.

The KfW had high requirements for the construction and room acoustical quality of the office spaces. Thus, for the standard offices, partition walls with increased construction acoustic requirements were planned and implemented, considering maximum flexibility. To prevent unfavorable sound transmission from room to room through the double facade, the outer shell was designed in a sawtooth pattern, and the cavity was lined with sound-absorbing materials.

The conference rooms are acoustically dimensioned so that even during audio and video conferences, very good speech intelligibility is ensured.

Image Copyright
1 Brigida González
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