Burda Media Park is a prominent office campus of Hubert Burda Media Holding – one of the largest media groups in Europe, with more than 100 magazines, many of which include ‘yellow press titles’. The project brief required forging a unique identity of the building based on the communicative work culture and the journalistic legacy of the company. The client, the city authorities and the architects collaborated to create a new image for Burda with a building that adheres to the larger masterplan of the campus, while carving its own place in the context.
Burda Media Park is situated at the entrance to the city of Offenburg and is demarcated by a railroad embankment and the Rhine River. The high profile location near the ICE tracks on the Frankfurt-Basel route is significant for the building’s visual impact.
The architecture of the Media Park can be interpreted as land art. The building is stunningly integrated into the charming meadow-studded landscape. The street Am Kestendamm was slightly diverted, the bend in the road emphasized to follow the curve of the building, while a small square was established in front of the main entrance. The Burda publishing house and administration employs a staff of 600 people in Offenburg. In addition to the print and the online departments, other office departments include subscription services, promotion and advertising.
The spread-out concept assigns a separate building to the individual editorial departments of various publications, while keeping the circulation routes to a minimum. Aside from the grand sculptural features, its unique quality lies in the communicative office workspaces, which are crucial for a modern media enterprise. New office layouts were developed for the editorial building. The result is an organic and a flexible office-scape. The layout and the combination of offices can be determined as required by moving the dividers. Individual offices, secretarial offices with waiting areas and conference rooms, even open decks, open-plan, combinations, and group offices are flexible to be set up or collapsed into a space throughout the building. The internal structure can vary from wing to wing and each section in turn is open to different arrangements. This variability addresses an essential requirement of the changing nature of magazine titles and shifts in editorial responsibilities.
The office building is conceived as a living space, emphasizing this quality at every workstation. The interior space plays a notable role in the work environment of the company that requires long working hours. Accordingly, the environment succeeds in providing a sense of comfort and belonging to its team, and therein is its achievement.
