Contemporary design for learning and working

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The design by the architects of Delugan Meissl (Vienna) is inspired by the traditional layout of local farms that are built around an enclosed centre courtyard. In the context of an administrative building, this layout promotes open communication and the exchange of ideas while allowing for concentrated working and learning. “The MIBA Forum is essentially a reinterpretation of the Vierkanthof or square farmyard typical for Upper Austria,” explained the architect Roman Delugan in his address at the official opening. “The architecture of the MIBA Forum is intended to communicate the company’s fundamental parameters, drawing on tradition and identity as well as innovative spirit and future orientation.”

Visitors reach the new MIBA centre by walking through a small park created at the edge of the company site. Thanks to the continuous rows of windows at ground level and between the first floor and the roof, the construction appears transparent and weightless, despite its rigid rectangular outline. The roof of the western section of the forum in which the training room and the foyer are located is slightly higher than on the east side. This results in an unusual geometry combining various roof pitches.

The publically accessible areas of the forum are all located on the ground floor and include the reception desk, catering facilities, the library and a number of meeting rooms. They are all accessible from the light-filled exhibition area that extends all around the courtyard. A free-standing staircase leads up to the office floor, which is partitioned into group offices and meeting rooms of various size and provides well-designed workplaces with an excellent room climate and none of the disadvantages of a noisy open-plan office.

The exposed roof construction in BauBuche rests on the columns that are supported by the first floor structure and is visible across the entire upper floor and party also from the ground floor. The laminated veneer lumber elements are not painted or otherwise covered and dominate the interior of the MIBA forum.

Its support structure was designed by the architects of Delugan Meissl in cooperation with engineers from Bollinger + Grohmann Ingenieure (Vienna) and with the help of a sophisticated 3D planning tool. Given the unusual geometry of the roof construction, more than 240 nodes had to be defined and produced. The result is simply astonishing. “The slender elements and their attractive finish give the roof construction an air of lightness and provide for a productive working environment,” says Gerhard Gölles, Senior Project Manager at Delugan Meissl Associated Architects. “Thanks to the high strength of BauBuche, it was possible to design an exposed support frame construction of purlins and rafters with cross-sections that are roughly half those needed with conventional spruce glulam.”