A hotel building with a steel façade
The “Der Öschberghof” golf resort, which was recently modernized and expanded, blends perfectly into the surrounding landscape – all thanks to its pladur®-coated steel façade. Now the architects Allmann Sattler Wappner have been awarded with the German Façade Prize 2020 for this project.
Photos: Rainer Schroeer
How do you expand a hotel complex without changing its overall look? How do you incorporate the surrounding environment without making the buildings stick out against the landscape? And how do you convert a historic location into a five-star golf resort without completely breaking with tradition?
This was the task set by the owners and builders of the Öschberghof hotel in Donaueschingen around five years ago, when they held a competition to find the right architects for the job.
After 40 years, it was time for the “Der Öschberghof” hotel complex to get a facelift in a project that envisaged both a modernization and expansion of the site.
A deluxe farmstead
The design by Munich-based architecture firm Allmann, Sattler, Wappner came out on top. Their concept was essentially based on an archetypal farmstead, consisting of little clusters of individual gable-roofed houses. This allowed existing hotel buildings to fit together with the new buildings, creating a harmonious overall design.
Originally, the roofs and façades of the new building were supposed to have copper paneling. “But we had to drop that idea again pretty quickly,” says Daniel Burkhard, the project coordinator for the Öschberghof hotel renovation. “The resort is focused on sustainability, so we collect rainwater to water the green spaces and parts of the golf course, for example. But water ionized with copper would kill off the grass over the long term.”
High design requirements
The designers realized they needed to look for a different material for the hotel – one that could be used to create both the “falling folds” that the architects had originally intended for the façade, and the shining, shimmering effect of the original material. And they needed to find someone who could manufacture and implement it. “That’s how we got involved,” says Marcel Glapski, a project manager at Arnold AG who was ultimately put in charge of designing the new façade.
Arnold AG is headquartered in Friedrichsdorf, near Frankfurt, Germany. A medium-sized firm, it is one of the country’s leading and most well-regarded metal processing companies. “It was our job to find the right material, plan the design, and ensure that production was completed smoothly.”
Façade elements with the pladur® effect
The right material for the hotel project turned out to be the coil-coated steel product pladur® Relief Icecrystal from thyssenkrupp Steel. “It’s an excellent material for façade paneling. It has all the right technical properties, and it opens up an incredible range of design opportunities that impressed the builders and architects alike,” Glapski says.
Klaus Kottkamp, customer consultant in the operation Sales Industry at thyssenkrupp Steel, can only agree: “The special feature here is the very high quality coating, which ensures that the material of the steel façade stays durable and colorfast and also lends it an attractive tactile quality.”
Additionally, the steel products score points for sustainability, as they can be recycled at any time. The material also boasts exceptional corrosion properties and ease of processing – it stands up to even the most complex forming processes.
“We conducted initial tests and made our own profiles with the sheet metal samples Mr. Kottkamp provided to us,” Glapski says. “Then, we worked together to determine to what extent we could bend and twist the metal during forming. It went extremely well; it’s exactly the kind of collaboration I always hope for.”
A novel idea for stress tests
The material stress test for the façade went even one step further, as the Öschberghof hotel is located in a region that is prone to hailstorms. “And what better way to test the resistance of a golf resort’s façade than by launching golf balls at it?” says Daniel Burkhard.
“So we built a model of the hotel, with pladur® paneling, and we used that to test whether the roofs and steel façades could withstand a massive hailstorm.” As it turns out, they could! “Obviously, a project like Öschberghof doesn’t have a major impact on our order books, volume-wise,” Kottkamp says. “But it’s an impressive demonstration of how versatile pladur® is and all the different options this premium steel product has to offer.”
