2/1/2021 The Zollverein School of Management and Design on Behance

The Zollverein School of Management and Design

Lisa Naughton

The Zollverein School of Management and Design

Architects: SANAA Architects – Kazuyo Sejima + Ryue Nishizawa 

Client: Zollverein School 
Location: Essen, Germany 

About the Project 

The Zollverein School of Management and Design is a striking, cubic
building in the suburban German context. The building was completed
in June 2006 (6). It is a perfect 35 metre cube, with a total built area of
5000m2 . The internal spaces are bright and generous, given that they
contain a reception, cafeteria, conference room, studio and project
areas, a library and a workshop. The building has a total of 132
windows of two different sizes across all 4 facades. (7) It was built
initially to be a private school, but failed to bring in enough income.
Then in 2010 the Folkwang University of the Art announced that they
would be using it for their management school (Zollverein). It stands out
beside a coal mining factory and given that it was built on the ground of
a former factory. The external structural walls are “punctured by
numerous apertures, [which] filter the light and view from the
surrounding factory landscape, softening the transition between exterior
and interior.” (8)

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(9) ^                                                                                                           
             v (10)

About the Architects

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SANAA (Sejima and Nishizawa and Associates) is a Japanese

architectural firm based in Tokyo. The architects Kazuyo Sejima and
Ryue Nishizawa founded it in 1995. These contemporary architects are
knows for designing highly experimental and aesthetically pleasing
buildings in Japan, Europe and the United States of America. Their
distinctive, bright, ethereal architecture is so renown that is has become
strongly associated with contemporary Japanese architecture. Some of
their most well-known projects include the New Museum of
Contemporary Art in New York City on the lower East side of Manhattan
(2007), and the Rolex Learning Centre in Lausanne in Switzerland
(2010). (11)

Both of the aforementioned buildings earned prestigious awards for

SANAA. The New Museum of Contemporary Art in NYC received a
Golden Lion in 2004, at the Venice Biennale. The Rolex Learning
Centre in Switzerland earned them the Daylight-Award in 2014 from the
VELUX Group (12). In addition to this, SANAA was awarded the
Pritzker Prize in 2010. This is informally known as the ‘nobel prize of
architecture’ and is of the highest honour.

SANAA won a competition in 2002 to design the New School of

Management and Design. It had a total budget of 23 million euros, and
building commenced in March 2005.
About the location

The Zollverein School is located in the city district of Essen-

Stoppenberg in Germany. This area is home to a long-standing coal
mining industry. The building itself is surrounded by coal mine
infrastructure, a small forest and a span of suburbs. It is slightly offset
from the rest of the university campus, which sits nearby but not directly
beside the School of Management.

It is important to note that there are almost no obscurities or large

bodies of infrastructure in the very near vicinity of the building. Its

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suburban context is undeniable, but it remains free standing and

undisturbed.

(13) ^                                                                                                         
      v (14)

Critique

The Zollverein School of Management and Design exhibits appropriate

and successful daylight design.

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The daylight design and the specific demands of the building go hand-
in-hand. This is a learning environment in which people can spend up
to 9 hours of their day. The abundance of windows (132 to be exact)
allows enough light into the building from morning to evening so that an
inhabitant can very easily grasp the feeling of the day passing. Bright
light is also a welcome feature in the library and workshop / exhibition
space that the building also houses. The latter is a double height space,
with the large windows extending up to the ceiling, allowing in a
considerable amount of light.

(15) ^

Another admirable feature of the building is that the context and

location were clearly considered in its daylight design. This building is
located in the northern hemisphere, so the majority of the sun comes
from south east to south west. The building is oriented so that one
corner or edge of the cube faces almost perfectly south. This way, two
of its facades which are generously populated with windows allow in a
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great quantity of direct sunlight. In addition to this, the School of

Management is set back far enough from any nearby building for no
shadow to be cast on it (see illustration). This makes for efficient
performance of the windows, and no glazed opening is gone to waste
by a shadow.

(16) ^

Lastly, the design of the Zollverein School clearly accounts in some way
for the human circadian rhythm. It is the sheer, tangible presence of
daylight that stimulates the ganglion cells in our eyes and sends all the
right signals to our brain. An inhabitant of the building can be sure of a
healthy 24 hour cycle to occur in their body just by being there every
day. This is successful daylight design, because, when broken down,
architecture is all about people, and a building that makes people feel
good is a success in itself.
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(9), (11), (11), (11)

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Save

Bibliography

6. The Zollverein School of Management and Design by SANAA | The

Strength of Architecture | From 1998 [Internet]. [cited 2020 Oct 22].
Available from: https://www.metalocus.es/en/news/zollverein-school-
management-and-design-sanaa

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7. www.archipicture.eu - SANAA - Zollverein School of Management

and Design [Internet]. [cited 2020 Oct 22]. Available from:
http://www.archipicture.eu/Architekten/Japan/SANAA/SANAA -
Zollverein School of Management and Design 1.html
8. Zollverein School of Management and Design / SANAA | ArchDaily
[Internet]. [cited 2020 Oct 22]. Available from:
https://www.archdaily.com/54212/zollverein-school-of-management-
and-design-sanaa
9. SANAA / Kazuyo Sejima + Ryue Nishizawa, Jeroen Verrecht ·
ZOLLVEREIN SCHOOL OF MANAGEMENT AND DESIGN · Divisare
[Internet]. [cited 2020 Oct 22]. Available from:
https://divisare.com/projects/374533-sanaa-kazuyo-sejima-ryue-
nishizawa-jeroen-verrecht-zollverein-school-of-management-and-
design#lg=1&slide=5
10. SANAA’s Zollverein School of Management and Design
Photographed by Laurian Ghinitoiu | ArchDaily [Internet]. [cited 2020
Oct 20]. Available from: https://www.archdaily.com/801825/sanaas-
zollverein-school-of-management-and-design-photographed-by-laurian-
ghinitoiu
11. Laurberg L. SANAA - arcspace.com [Internet]. [cited 2020 Oct 22].
Available from: https://arcspace.com/architect/sanaa/
12. DAYLIGHT-AWARD FOR THE ROLEX LEARNING CENTER IN
LAUSANNE - The Daylight Site | Daylighting research, architecture,
practice and education The Daylight Site [Internet]. [cited 2020 Oct 22].
Available from: http://thedaylightsite.com/daylight-award-for-the-rolex-
learning-center-in-lausanne/
13. Google Earth [Internet]. [cited 2020 Oct 22]. Available from:
https://earth.google.com/web/search/zollverein+school+of+managemen
t+and+design/@51.48784519,7.04748132,48.07590419a,587.9511229
7d,35y,0.00000001h,59.99968708t,359.99999915r/data=CigiJgokCdD6
8m6SvklAETZptERKvklAGdPtAWfFMBxAIboW09srKRxA
14. Zollverein School as project architect at SANAA - Works - NKBAK
[Internet]. [cited 2020 Oct 22]. Available from:
https://www.nkbak.de/projects/zollverein-school.html

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15. Ghinitoiu L. Gallery of SANAA’s Zollverein School of Management

and Design Photographed by Laurian Ghinitoiu - 30 [Internet]. [cited
2020 Oct 22]. Available from:
https://www.archdaily.com/801825/sanaas-zollverein-school-of-
management-and-design-photographed-by-laurian-
ghinitoiu/58583818e58ece1f96000400-sanaas-zollverein-school-of-
management-and-design-photographed-by-laurian-ghinitoiu-photo?
next_project=no
16. PD: 2D Sun-Path [Internet]. [cited 2020 Oct 24]. Available from:
https://drajmarsh.bitbucket.io/sunpath2d.html

Lisa Naughton
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PROJECT MADE FOR

Daylight Exemplars in World Architecture

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The Zollverein School of Management and Design

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Published: October 27th 2020

CREATIVE FIELDS

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