Adidas has recently laid the foundation stone for two new staff buildings at its headquarters in Herzogenaurach. “Campus Expansion South” is to include a new office building for more than 2,000 employees as well as an events building with a restaurant for the employees. The expansion will also involve the building of a new multi-storey car park. The project is scheduled for completion for the end of 2018. Meanwhile, the guests at the foundation stone laying ceremony on July 13 had a chance to visually experience the future buildings by means of 3-D glasses.
The names of the two new buildings – Arena and HalfTime – were selected among those submitted by Adidas' employees. Arena, which has been designed by Behnisch Architekten, will have a surface of 50,000 square meters. This building will also form the main entrance to Adidas' World of Sports, the name of the company's corporate headquarters. The entrance will look like a players' tunnel, to recreate a stadium atmosphere. Employees will be able to directly access the running track from the ground floor of the building, where a locker area will also be located for their convenience. Arena will feature several “random” meeting places to provide opportunities for spontaneous exchanges. This open workplace concept has extensively been tested by the company, with good results in terms of collaboration and creativity.
HalfTime, the other new building, will have a surface of 14,000 square meters. The building has been designed by the Danish architects of Cobe, a progressive community of designers. HalfTime will combine an event and restaurant area and form a connection between the new south campus and the old north campus. The building will be flooded with light and open to all sides, the company said.
In addition, the outdoor areas in the south campus will be redesigned by Lola Landscape Architects, a group based in The Netherlands. The different buildings will be connected with one another by colored paths, the so-called “stars”, which have been conceived as meeting places or areas for sports activities. Finally, a large lake will be added at the new main entrance.
