Covestro Campus Office Building

In the Leverkusen “Chempark”, a new campus will combine all company divisions, such as research, development and administration, for the Covestro chemical company. The building will lend structural expression to the identity of the young firm, which evolved from its parent company Bayer AG in 2014. The Group campus in the “Chempark” will be developed in several construction phases. The first phase consists of the six-storey main office building and a car park, built on either side of the B8 and connected by an elevated footbridge. Recesses in the façade of the main office building allow terraced gardens to become visible as green focal points. The building is a modular structure in which the two-storey module, with its façade recess, is doubly mirrored and brought back together. The subsequent construction phases consist of a double Z-shaped hybrid building containing offices and laboratories, flanked by a pilot plant building to the south. These two buildings will likewise be connected by footbridges.

The hybrid building is linked to the headquarters by an access path on the first floor, or “spine”, which leads through the whole building to the main entrances located at the ends. The spine connects a series of atria for interdisciplinary communication within the company, in contrast with the adjacent functional areas which focus on expertise as well as on laboratory, office and technical activities. A large central atrium at the midpoint of the spine serves the Group as the building’s “town hall” in which all employees can meet or attend events. Materials manufactured by Covestro are deployed prominently in the buildings, including polycarbonate sheets for façades and interior surfaces.