Design of BMW Central Building - Essay Example

? Summary This show the building was designed and built in a unique way using some simple materials like glasses and fabricated metals. Whatinfluenced the designer to come up with the idea of designing a magnificent building? Contribution What contributed to the building of BMW Central Building in Leipzig, the effects to the culture, and the how it influence its building. Methods The methods and techniques applied in building this magnificent building and state of the art technology installed, how the technology was tested and how it work. Conclusions How the building could have been designed with the current technology. How it should have appeared. Name Tutor Task Date BMW CENTRAL BUILDING BMW central building in Leipzig Germany, is a magnificent building designed by Pritzker Prize together with Zaha Hadid architects, this happened in the year 2003. The building was designed with the concept of holding the integral sections that involved in the production of the BMW vehicles in one roof. Initially, the BMW real estate and facility management group had designed the three separate production units; the competition was put up to design the interlinked three core production units ( Aaron Betsky, 256). The best design by the Zaha Hadid and the Pritzker Prize to interlinked the three productions unit, which is the paint shop, the body building shop, and the assembly area; also included were administration, Restaurant for the staff. The conceptual idea behind the design, and building of this state of the art building which is a nerve centre of all the factory processes of assembling BMW vehicles was to allow easily movement of assembled body parts to be conveyed from one production unit of an elevated building to the other production unit. The focal point of designing and building an assembly hall, was to create enough space around the production line, was to give room for further expansion of the hall in the future without disruption to production. The magnificent building is not only functioning as a production piece of the factory, but also an epicenter of so many activities, including; the public relation area, offices, and the meeting room. The environmental approach was put into considerations, when the stipulate the use of water based paints to avoid environmental conflicts. The BMW central building is made up of several elevated conveyers which are made of a standard range of building materials like corrugated metals, channel glass and glass walls; this gave it a spectacular appearance and a unique design which stand out to be a unique building in Leipzig, Germany. The whole BMW central building covered 2.2 kilometer square that is 540 acre piece of land. The fabrication of bodies’ hall covers 640,000 square feet; the paint shop is covering 270,000 square feet and the assembly hall which is the largest cover 1,075,000 square feet. Included in the structural design is the large parking yard, the integral structural feature has the dynamic spectacle where it allows the movement the inherent dynamism movement of car bodies and vehicles and the arrangement of the parking lots giving it a gorgeous look. The other unique features in the building are such like the strategy used to organize the cross section that connect the ground floor and the first floor, there are two sequences of terraced plates of staircases that were set up from the southern part of the building to the northern part of building. The other staircase moved straight up from the ground floor meeting the first cascade then moving up to the space projecting the entrance. The advantage is that the articulation of the most recognizable domain within an overall field. The materials used in the internal organization and walls separating the conveyors allow visual communication much more among the staff of all the ranks; this is to avoid the common tradition of segregation of them into a status group. The designing and building of this centre followed the modern organization of the offices in such a way that can provide a working environment than could be in any other building. The building serves 5,500 employees that work in both in the white collar jobs and the blue collar jobs. Both the white and the blue collar workers were allocated the ground, and the first floors spaces of the building that house their social and entertainment in the ground floor to avoid exclusion domain of the workers. Zaha Hadid was not only involved in the designing of the BMW Central Building but also in choosing materials to be used. The design, structure, shape and purpose of the building; will determine the materials to be used in building it. The three main production units of BMW Central Building were mainly built using the prefabricated metal sheets; the central structure had used the steel beams. The corners that slightly curved and the face lifting of the dreamlike shapes were built using concrete. Some parts of the roof were facade covered using aluminum sheet this gave the building an aesthetic and appealing look. The conveyors and wall were built using the glass beams and thick sheet of glass. Zaha Hadid’s masterly work of designing was an encouragement from her previous awards from the excellent work she did, and also from the formal education she earned from various schools of Architectural and design. She attended and worked for quite a number of schools and universities including; Architectural Associates from the year 1972, she later became a partner of the office of Metropolitan Architectural. In 1987, she went back to college for further studies in the same institution; this gave her more chance to continue sharpening her skills in designing. In United States; she was made an honorary member of the American Academy of Arts, she later moved to the United Kingdom in 2002. She gained her experience and diverse knowledge in designing from her interaction, and working for various institutions in different countries. This contributed immensely in designing of the BMW central building, and this is because she had knowledge and experience of different building, which were designed by award winners of Pritzker Prize such like: Philip Johnson who was the first Pritzker Laureate in 1979, the late Luis Barragan of Mexico 1980, the late James Stirling of Great Britain who won the prize in the year 1981 and 1999, the other prize winner was Hans Hollein of Austria; the 1985 Laureate. These Architects contributed tremendously to the good work of Zaha Hadid. The turning point for a good work for Zaha Hadid came into the limelight when she grew much interest in the rigorous interface between architecture, landscape, and geology, was when she was working with partner Patrik Schumacher. She studied and experimented immensely on the topography, and human made systems that made her apply the knowledge in cutting edge technologies. In her quest to invent new ideas, she moved to experiment and practice abstraction and fragmentation where she made a step using the knowledge for quite some times, she then moved to a different field of fluidity and seamless complexity. These processes eventually turn to unexpected dynamism in architectural and building requirements. Her architectural expertise and practices were demonstrated in the designing of some of the worlds’ magnificent structures like the BMW Building in Leipzig, the MAXXI National Museum Arts of 21st Century in Rome Italy, and the Phaeno Science center in Wolfsburg. The previous such like the Vistra Fire station demonstrate a masterly work of Zaha Hadid. Her bold, visionary and retrospective work has transformed the future architects with new spatial concepts. Leipzig is the largest city in eastern Germany, which is located in the north west of Saxony. The Leipzig underwent a peaceful revolution and the significant event that mark the history of Germany; was the bringing down of Berlin wall by citizens of this region. There was the reunification of Germany; Leipzig underwent a process of transformation like any other leading town in eastern Germany and after the reunification between the year 1990 and the year 2000; there followed the collapse of key industries and led to radical structural changes. Most of the industrial companies were privatized and a few survived this. Privatization led to the collapse of industrial production between the year 1991 and the yea2000, and rise in service sectors thus; massive job losses; which resulted to urban rural migration of the people due to lack of formal employment. Following reunification, Leipzig and Saxony introduced tremendous economic and development measures that turn Leipzig into a hub of leading corporations and industries. Included in the leading corporations that venture their businesses in Leipzig is the BMW Central Building. This vehicle manufacturing industry has over years stabilized the social economic situation in Leipzig by providing employment opportunities to the locals. The BMW central business has over years have successfully improved the economy of this region this is seen in the Leipzig’s GDP which in the year 2008, it had reached a € 13.802 billion mark, making it Leipzig the best in the Germany. The other success, which made Leipzig, attract more giant corporation and businesses like BMW; is its best registration of businesses in the entire Germany. The laws were formulated to protect the local labor market from repercussions by the local investors who use a method of working time count. Despite the economic recession, in the year 2009; all sectors of the economy have tremendously improved attracting more economic sectors. There are quite a number of main economic sectors which have so far been attracted to Leipzig due to growing economy are such like communication service providers like Telecom and IT, the energy sector, Transport and logistics companies like DHL and Amazon, the Health care sectors like Leipzig University Hospital, the Biotechnology centers and Tourism and Hotel Industries. Many more industries have express their interest in setting up businesses in this place. In the year 2010, the Leipzig Chamber of Industries and Commerce registered over 30,000 companies along over with more than 3,000 firms with skilled manual trades. At the time of German reunification, most of the buildings were in a dilapidated condition, thanks to the financial incentives by the authority of Leipzig and Saxony, this mark a return of modernization and construction by the capital investors from the western part of Germany. They improved the construction and the property market which proved elusive at the long ran. The local authority formulated rules and regulations and policies which governed the sustainable development, improved public areas, and modernization of technical infrastructures such as roads, power and electricity, water and sewer lines. The other element, which has contributed in the development of Leipzig, is its spatial structures that offer courteous and conducive development. These have attracted more foreign and local investors including the BMW Company which build the famous BMW Central Building. The current population of people living in this place has risen tremendously, over the past years the number of people has gone high; due to improved social economic, there is over 1 million in the Leipzig. These people belonged to diverse cultural backgrounds. Leipzig is known internationally for diverse and unique cultural and festival such like music, visual arts and the modern way festivities like euro scene Leipzig, the jazz Festival and the DOK Leipzig. The international investors’ attention is attracted by the development of creative milieus. These milieus predominantly exist in cultural and artistic institutions of visual arts, the music which has built the image of this geographical region and attracted more investors including the BMW Company. Leipzig is well known as the city of music its history in the music industry can be traced back to more than 700years, with the well known music fathers like Felix Mendelssohn, Johann Sebastian Bach, Robert Schumann, and Clara Wick. The most spectacular music venues, which are well known in the history of Leipzig, are like the Gewandhaus concert hall, Forum Thomanum and the University of Leipzig. In addition, the common, traditional and cultural activities like visual art, the Neo Rauch have been the leading international attraction features. The main spectacular, tourism attraction features in Leipzig are like the Museum of Fine Art which exhibits artifacts ranging from the middle ages to the modern era, the Gallery of contemporary Arts, which holds regular, temporary exhibition, and also the current and modern contemporary, the Leipzig museum of printing Arts, the Leipzig museum of Literature, University of Leipzig which has a collection of ancient artifacts from different parts of the Germany like the Egyptology the Museum of musical instruments and teaching collection, and so many other tourism attraction features. Many investors and developers would like to be associated with the undying artistic and cultural institutions which have gained charisma and symbolic force globally. The Leipzig city had an aim of establishing a hallmark variety in terms of cultural structures and trends (Andreas Schiller, 85). The main element in terms of culture and image, which they are striving to maintain, is a city of revolutions which are quite spectacular because of its peace. The city also has higher education institutions, quite a number of music industries, exhibitions, trade shows and publishing houses. The building of BMW central business building and many other spectacular structures have not only improved the image of Leipzig city, but has also largely attributed to the dynamic increase in the tourists, who are visiting the area to see tremendous design work and building of the BMW Central Building. The BMW had one goal in establishing the plan; they wanted to create an efficient, reliable and safe system for monitoring and control the technical systems. The task seem to be more complex than they were expecting, they, therefore, employ the services of skilled and experienced body to install some of the sophisticated, automated control technology( Zaha Hadid,160). They employ the service of B and R to supply and install the required technology in the building. They had to test their state of the art technology to establish whether it will work as expected in the conveyers of vehicles and whether it will work for the required time before they wear out. The technology applied by B and R company were of high reliability and has been seen to be applied in most areas of where equipment and machines are necessary, like in the BMW Company; this is to provide a safe and reliable technology. Future expansion of the Plant is put into confederation, in the production unit; the space left is to provide easy expansion without interfering with the production. The technology installed will be expanded in the future without changing the uniformity of the whole structure and programs; the labor that is used involves the use of local manpower in doing some manual work and also to help in using machinery. The machinery that are used are like the fork lifters to lift the heavy loads such as the steel metal beams, the concrete used in building the supporting structures. The bulldozers are used in preparing the foundation by moving the unwanted soil, leveling of the ground like the parking yard. The other tools and machines, which are used, are like the drillers for making a hole for bolts and nuts used in joining the metal frames together, also making holes in glass beam to make it easier in putting them to the wall. The other machineries used involved to use of transport vehicle such as Lorries to transport the building materials, to transport the unwanted soil from the building side. The BMW Central Building according to my own research and understanding is that; the building was first designed by the BMW team being three separate production units. The team was not satisfied by the structure they had designed; instead they put up a competition to design a better structure that can provide the interlinked between the three production units. The Zaha Hadid and the Prizte Prize come up with a spectacular design that impressed the BMW team, the production unit; the assembly unit and the paint shop were conjoined or interlinked by a conveyer that linked the three units and also act as an automatic conveyer of finished body parts from one point of production to the other. The building was designed by Zaha Hadid in such a way that blue and the white collar workers of the BMW Central Building can meet, and interact to avoid the segregation of employees per the status. The other feature that makes the building unique is the wall; they were build in a way that it possesses a visual communication among the staff. The management and the subordinate staff were confined in a non segregated work place; this provides or enhances mutual relationship and healthful working condition among the workers of different ranks. The workers of higher rank can be able see the work of other junior blue collar and white collar staff. The building was designed and built in a unique way. The main structure of production unit was designed like a four stretched finger, giving it a magnificent shape. The BMW Central Building was to be or designed today, there could be more technological ideas and more inventions involved. If Zaha Hadid is the designer, she might put into consideration the rate at which the company is growing, and think of it might in future venture into a business of making aircrafts or manufacturing of the Trains. She will design in a feature in a way that, there is future expansion of including an aircraft manufacturing plant or the manufacturing plant for the Locomotive. The other thing, which must be put into consideration if the plant is to be designed today, is to add more space in the building and even increase some more floors to provide more space for the growing industry. The other thing that I will put into consideration if I am to design and build today, is to make use of the space especially the underground floor for parking, and keeping completed vehicles. A Conveyor should be designed in away it conveys the finished vehicles from the final assembly unit to the store place underground. The other magnificent work, which should have been added, is the shift or another conveyor to deliver the vehicle from underground floor to display yard or show room. The customers who are intending to buy the vehicles should be able to view them in the screen showing all the details of the vehicle, before he makes up his minds whether to purchase or not. The other idea may be the plant could be designed in such a way that the floors of the plant to be increased upwards to minimize the space used. The first process of manufacturing to start from the uppermost floor being conveyed downwards, this is to safe space for futures expansion. Work Cited Aaron Beetsky, Zaha Hadid. Zaha Hadid: Complete Works. Rizzoli International Publication, 2009. Hadid Zaha: Zaha Hadid: BMW Central Building, Leipzig, Germany. Princeton Architecctural Press. 2006. Philip Jadido: Architecture and Automobile.Michigan State University press. 2004 Andreas Schiller: Germany Real Estate: Asset and Industry Trend. New York: Scholastic Inc.’2004 Read More