Göttingen | Sartorius AG Campus Exterior

The new campus of Sartorius AG, in Göttingen, vividly demonstrates how high-quality architecture and lighting can communicate the spirit of a company. The light from the buildings and the softly illuminated landscape architecture combine to create a poetry that makes spending time outdoors an experience.

The internationally active Sartorius AG employs highly qualified staff from all over the world. It was therefore important to the life-science company to make optimum use of the new building for its corporate headquarters. In addition to a high functionality and sustainability, the new campus also had to be aesthetically pleasing to offer employees and job candidates an appealing work environment. The firm plans to hire 1,000 employees annually by 2025. The new campus, which was built on part of the 170,000-square-meter site in the Grone district of Göttingen according to a master plan by Hanover-based architects Bünemann & Collegen, is exemplary of this approach. In addition to increased capacities for production and administration, the new corporate headquarters offers an exceptionally attractive working environment that expresses the character of the company.

A centerpiece of the new campus is a multi-awardwinning two-story, 25,000-square-foot production building where some 450 employees manufacture laboratory equipment such as balances, ultra-pure water systems and moisture analyzers. Since the calibration of precision balances is also carried out at this location, the building is protected against temperature fluctuations and against vibrations by a decoupled foundation. The production facility is flanked by five offset, floor-to-ceiling glazed office blocks, each offering 2,600-square-meters of space on four floors. To the west of the hall is a two-story reinforced concrete building for product development and laboratories. An atrium, whose glass facades open onto a forecourt, leads through the main entrance onto the campus.

Dancing luminaires create a playful lighting element

Approaching the atrium from the Sartorius parking garage on the other side of the access road, one passes unusual, five-meter-high standing luminaires that line the path in a lively manner and are grouped in a free arrangement on the forecourt. The construction, consisting of a “waisted” pole that ends at the top in a fork as a fastening element for a swiveling, round light disk, makes the sculptural- looking luminaire seem to dance. The architects were responsible for the luminaire design of this playful piecet, which is part of the lighting concept developed by Studio DL. Like all the indoor and outdoor lighting on the site, the pole luminaire can be controlled. Equipped with Tunable White technology, it orients itself to the seasons, one season with warmer light, the other with cooler light.

Interior and exterior lighting combined to create poetry

After passing the main entrance, the car-free campus opens up, capturing the eye with an enchanting garden landscape. Paved paths established as boulevards and byways wind through the lawn-covered grounds, where different species of trees and shrubs, differentiated by color, provide variety. A wide wooden walkway leads across the man-made pond with its lush and varied bank planting, the warm hue of the wood gently highlighted by individual LEDs integrated into the supports of the handrail. Thanks to a special optic, they distribute their light like a fan on the ground. In combination with minimized path lighting, the restrained light coming from the buildings discreetly stages the outdoor space. Studio DL began conceptualizing this interplay of interior and exterior lighting as well as architectural staging in 2015 and recorded the result in a master plan so that the lighting can be continued in the event of a future expansion of the facility.

Low light sources preserve an undisturbed façade view

7,000-square-meters of installed glass and other highly reflective facade materials quickly led to the decision to implement the general lighting for the pathways exclusively with low light points. Along the facades, small, low-beam, high-power bollard luminaires with an invisible light source illuminate the pavement of the boulevard, which extends from the atrium as the main axis across the campus. To illuminate the grass strips between the path and the façade, the standard luminaires were modified from a design by Studio DL to emit additional light to the rear. Since the side paths are illuminated by less powerful bollard luminaires, the lighting pattern reflects the hierarchy of pedestrian access. Small ground recessed luminaires for discreet illumination of trees, shrubs and grasses complete the lighting of the outdoor space.

Biodynamic light in the interior

The interior lighting, which sets the stage for the architecture with its consistent luminaire placement and highlighting of distinctive parts of the building, contributes significantly to the image of the landscape architecture with its seasonally dependent light color. In winter, the overall impression is cooler; in spring, it is significantly warmer at 2700 Kelvin. With a dynamic daylight simulation, the light in the office also changes throughout the day until the main component is completely switched off in the evening and the indirect lighting is dimmed to 2%. In this way, the arrangement of the pendant luminaires placed parallel to the longitudinal axis still communicates the depth of the office buildings.

On the Sartorius Campus, architecture and interior design, interior and exterior lighting and their control enter into a symbiosis that expresses a cosmopolitan, international corporate image. The interplay of interior and exterior lighting also creates an atmosphere that tempts one to pause in the outdoor space.

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