With its innovative form of construction, the new German Ministry for the Environment building in Dessau (UBA) is a model scheme that asserts itself confidently in the presence of the nearby structures by Gropius. The 460-metre-long development, containing some 800 workplaces, is dynamic in form and delights in the use of colour. Set on the inner-city site of a former railway station, it follows a sinuously curving line in the heterogeneous, small-scale urban fabric. This winding form is a response to various local constraints and results in a range of different spatial qualities both internally and externally. With its glazed facades, the semicircular forum – a venue for exhibitions and other public events – opens on to the immediate surroundings. Adjoining the forum is a planted courtyard covered by a fully glazed sunscreen roof structure. The outer facade reinforces the idea of the horizontal strip in its use of materials and its coloration: the building is articulated by 33 different hues from seven colour groups in a chromatic graduation. Continuous prefabri-cated balustrade elements with larch cladding alternate with recessed windows and flush, colour-printed areas of glass.