© Deutsche Bundesstiftung Umwelt, Osnabrück?/?Zooey Braun
Founded in 1990, the German Federal Foundation for the Environment (Deutsche Bundesstiftung Umwelt, DBU) has its headquarters in a historic villa with adjacent park on the edge of the inner city of Osnabruck in north-western Germany. As the premises were too small for the work of the foundation from the outset, three new buildings have been erected on the site in the interim.
The horseshoe-shaped administration building dating back to 1995, designed by Erich Schneider-Wessling, already featured triple glazing and load-bearing elements made of recycled concrete. In 2002, this was followed by the DBU Centre of Environmental Communication by Thomas Herzog. This timber-frame structure contains several conference rooms that receive daylight through translucent membrane roofs.
In line with its predecessors, the new office and exhibition building of DBU Naturerbe GmbH also had to fulfil the highest aesthetic and environmental ambitions. The user, a subsidiary company of the Foundation, administrates around 60,000 hectares of environmental reserves that have mostly been created by the federal government on former military land.
The horseshoe-shaped administration building dating back to 1995, designed by Erich Schneider-Wessling, already featured triple glazing and load-bearing elements made of recycled concrete. In 2002, this was followed by the DBU Centre of Environmental Communication by Thomas Herzog. This timber-frame structure contains several conference rooms that receive daylight through translucent membrane roofs.
In line with its predecessors, the new office and exhibition building of DBU Naturerbe GmbH also had to fulfil the highest aesthetic and environmental ambitions. The user, a subsidiary company of the Foundation, administrates around 60,000 hectares of environmental reserves that have mostly been created by the federal government on former military land.