Allschwil: "Hortus" in operation and fully let
The project, which aims to set new standards in sustainable construction, was developed by Senn from St. Gallen and designed by Basel architects Herzog & de Meuron.
The "Hortus" office building in Allschwil (BL) has just been opened. It is part of the Switzerland Innovation Park Basel Area Main Campus and offers around 10,000 office spaces. Johannes Eisenhut, CEO of Senn Development, was able to announce full occupancy just in time for the completion: "We have signed the rental agreements for the entire building," he told journalists. By the end of the year, around 150 people will be working in Hortus, followed by a total of 500 next year.
The creators of the project set themselves extremely ambitious sustainability goals in terms of recyclability of the building materials and minimization of grey energy. The attention that "Hortus" received from the outset was correspondingly high. In specialist circles, timber construction is seen as a potential new reference point for sustainable construction methods. One of the features of "Hortus" is that it largely dispenses with concrete - at least in the building construction - and newly developed clay elements were used for the ceiling construction.
"Not a sponsored lighthouse project"
"It all started with an order: radical sustainability," said Eisenhut. And because new paths were taken during construction, the completion alone must be considered a great success. But the economic aspect was even more important. After all, it was also about proving that ecological construction pays off. "This is not a sponsored flagship project for sustainability, but a real-life experiment that has become a real-life success," says the developer.
The Basel architecture firm Herzog & de Meuron is responsible for the architectural realization of the vision. At the opening, its co-founder Jacques Herzog spoke of a "stroke of luck" and praised Senn's foresight in wanting to create added value beyond immediate commercial interests. "Very few developers do that," he said. The aesthetics of "Hortus" are unique - "the individual details, the ceilings, the supports, the surfaces". Herzog described the quality of stay as an essential task of architecture and at the same time a basic prerequisite for "real sustainability".
The Switzerland Innovation Park Basel Area is a science campus focused on life sciences. The park is currently home to around 50 companies. In the long term, around 8,000 people are expected to work on the entire site. (aw)
