Funke Media Office, Essen
Customer Project
Funke Media Office Street View (© AllesWirdGut, Tschinkersten fotografie)
Funke Media Office Rear View (© AllesWirdGut, Tschinkersten fotografie)
V-Shaped Columns During Construction (© FCP - Fritsch, Chiari & Partner ZT GmbH)
Time Lapse of Construction (© FCP - Fritsch, Chiari & Partner ZT GmbH)
3D Model of the Funke Media Office in RFEM (© FCP - Fritsch, Chiari & Partner ZT GmbH)
| Investor |
KK Berliner Platz 1 Entwicklungsgesellschaft mbH & Co. KG Rüttenscheider Straße 62 45130 Essen, Germany |
| General Contractors - Joint Venture |
AllesWirdGut Architektur ZT GmbH, Vienna, Austria www.awg.at FCP - Fritsch, Chiari & Partner ZT GmbH (Structural Engineering, Project Management, Vibration Analysis) www.fcp.at |
Model Data (with Bored Piles)
The Funke Media Group headquartered in Essen, Germany, initiated a new corporate headquarters construction project to accommodate around 1,000 employees at an important traffic junction in the city center. The three building complex includes a total area of 398,265 ft² in addition to a 300 car parking garage.
For this award winning architectural project, FCP was hired as the general contractor in a joint venture with AllesWirdGut Architektur. Construction began at the end of 2015 with completion in January 2019.
The Funke Media office includes an elongated double structure with a connecting bridge tunnel as well as a circular media tower with a supplementary steel structure and media facade. The buildings with 6 to 7 above-ground stories are designed as a framed structure consisting of reinforced concrete flat slabs, columns and shear walls in the access zones.
The unique architectural design elements are the V-shaped columns at the double structure ground floor. The SB3 quality V-shaped columns give the impression of a "floating" monolithic structure on this open story. For this design, the V-shaped columns intersect the building’s orthogonal support beams which required massive steel components. Additionally, the columns’ reinforcement, their connections, and reaching the concrete design strength class C50/60 was an extremely complex challenge. To tackle this issue, the building company created a preliminary design of the V-shaped columns to determine potential issues (formwork, reinforcement installation, concrete compaction, etc.) and a design plan for optimal results.
A shallow subway structure (tunnel and emergency exit) located under the building posed another technical challenge. A combined pile-raft foundation (KPP) was needed to meet the allowable soil pressure and more importantly, to minimize building settlement. To limit settlement, the 47 in. diameter bored piles along the subway structure (soil covering only 3 ft from the lower edge of the floor slab) were extended to a rigid soil layer depth to serve as a "rigid abutment". Regular (nightly) survey control work in the subway tunnel monitored settlement calculations. To prevent vibration, measures were taken close to the emergency exit.
The foundation as well as the complexity of the supporting structure were particular challenges in both the planning and design phases. This required advanced engineering knowledge to minimize construction time and costs.
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Programs Used for Structural Analysis
RFEM
Main Program
Main Program
Structural engineering software for finite element analysis (FEA) of planar and spatial structural systems consisting of plates, walls, shells, members (beams), solids and contact elements
Price of First License
3,540.00 USD
3,540.00 USD
RFEM
Concrete Structures
Add-on Module
Design of reinforced concrete members and surfaces (plates, walls, planar structures, shells)
Price of First License
810.00 USD
810.00 USD
