The Bingen Town Hall, designed by a Schaudt architekten, is conceived as a linear, two-story volume. The ground floor houses the main public spaces, opening onto the square. The upper floor contains the administrative offices, while the attic serves as an archive and storage area.
Structurally, the building combines laminated beech timber (Baubuche), timber-framed walls, and cross-laminated timber panels, arranged on a grid with a 2.40-meter center-to-center spacing. The façade, clad in pre-aged, rough-sawn silver spruce planks, expresses the materiality of the construction system, while the high degree of prefabrication allowed for rapid assembly on a reinforced concrete foundation.
Bingen Town Hall by Schaudt Architekten BDA. Photograph by Zooey Braun.
Project description by Schaudt architekten BDA
The new construction of the town hall is the central component of the sustainable and ecological redesign of the town center of the municipality of Bingen. The new building is integrated into the existing built structure in such a way that well-usable open spaces with a high quality of stay are created. The building itself follows the typology of the buildings in the historic town center and is inserted into the existing context as a simple, rectangular structure with a gabled roof and its gable facing the street.
The multifunctional forecourt created through the deliberate positioning of the building serves as the entrance to the new town hall and, as a new town center, provides space for encounters and exchange among the citizens.
The linear, two-storey volume of the town hall accommodates the representative, public functions on the ground floor and deliberately opens up toward the forecourt. The generously proportioned council chamber on the ground floor, for example, has a direct connection to the outside and can therefore also be easily separated for external use. The first floor houses the administrative offices, while the attic is initially used as archive and storage space and represents an important potential expansion area for the administration, contributing to the future adaptability of the new town hall.
As part of the sustainable and ecological development of the new Bingen town center, the town hall was designed as a highly efficient timber skeleton structure that confidently expresses the character of timber construction both inside and out. The façade, clad with rough-sawn, pre-weathered silver fir boards, reveals the timber construction through its materiality and makes the internal organization of the building visible through the deliberate arrangement of closed and open façade areas.
The structural system made of beech laminated veneer lumber - known as Baubuche - is combined with timber-frame walls and cross-laminated timber ceilings on a strict structural grid with an axis spacing of 2.40 meters. Thanks to the high degree of prefabrication, all timber components could be quickly assembled on top of the reinforced concrete basement level. The entire timber load-bearing structure remains visible in the interior, creating the characteristic rhythm typical of timber architecture. The structural elements made of ‘Baubuche’ are complemented by visible planar surfaces of silver fir on the walls and the finely articulated structure of silver fir battens on the ceilings, creating a bright and natural interior atmosphere.
Equipped with a photovoltaic system, the new Bingen town hall represents a successful example of contemporary, sustainable, and forward-looking architecture in a rural context.
