Headquarters, Herzogenaurach

The campus is formed from a loose arrangement of individual built volumes, each of which speaks a distinctive and unique architectural language in its own right but at the same time takes its place in the diverse ensemble of the World of Sports. Laces is situated in the southeastern part of the site, between the Adidas Brand Centre and the Adi Dassler Sports Ground. The topography is used to let the landscape flow into the transparent covered atrium and the building via the two-storey entrance area, and thus to extend the extraordinary quality of the campus in the form of an artificial landscape. The green space of the park is present in the atrium at all times through the two-storey glass facade. The clear contour of the ring-shaped structure permits an uninterrupted view of the surrounding country from every department. Only the part containing the Test Hall lies outside the shell and is integrated into the topography as a greened-over hill.

As a counterpart to the black and somewhat flat volume of the Adidas Brand Centre, Laces fits into the existing complex of buildings with its white-banded facade and its dynamic architectural volume. The clearly contoured volume positively invites the surrounding campus to find a continuation inside as a climate-controlled atrium. Lined up in a ring, the office spaces open up to the atmospheric interior and the remarkable landscape with their large glazed surfaces. Within the individual storeys the 'laces', free linking walkways that span the atrium, permit a maximum of interaction and quick connections, and allow areas of open communication to arise. The walkways 'tie' the building together in terms of structural engineering, too, making it a multi-layered office environment with abundant relationships. As delicate connecting bridges, they weave a poetic spatial structure into the interior and thus make the special creative atmosphere of the building legible. The result is an inspiring place for research and product development. The external appearance of Laces is characterised by its clearly contoured, reflective smoothness, which is thus courteously unobtrusive and visually reduces the built volume. The smooth facade surfaces are structured and articulated by set back loggias corresponding to the walkways.

An additional feature of this building is that it was possible to include other design themes such as orientation and office furnishings into the planning process at an unusually early stage. This led to the creation of an exceptionally homogeneous whole. The building, interior design, graphics and furnishings are all of a piece.