Design Post

location
Cologne, Germany

client
Wim van Ast & Paul van den Berg
 

project team
Anouk Dekker, Maarten Sanders, Hans Witt & Eric Wezenberg

photography
Constantin Meyer

industrial monument

In a world where one thing follows another at an ever-increasing rate, much of value is discarded and thrown away. A city cannot exist without its past. That is why it is important to give disused structures a new meaning. While preserving as much of the original identity as possible.

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The Post Köln design centre is an example of the reuse of an old structure; the remains of a characteristic station roof have been transformed into an exhibition centre, with an underground garage beneath the building.

How to turn a station roof into an exhibition space for furniture and design. There was a need to create a variety of spatial conditions in the building. The idea arose to put trains back in the station. This creates space on the trains, space between the trains and spaces in the trains. Without changing the character of the construction, new usage possibilities have arisen.

With an eye to the future, the design and implementation of the installations have taken into account a possible repurposing into office space. It would be a wonderful space for creative companies that are open to innovative office concepts.

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The facades of the building consist of a shell that is as transparent as possible. The change in the nature of the structure, from open roof to closed building, brought with it a number of technical complications. These have been solved in an elegant way by means of a number of inventive technical solutions, in keeping with the lightness of the original roof construction.