A competence center for customer traffic, an event and an administration building are combined in this new building. On the first floor there is a catering area in the form of a food market court. This area is intended to be an urban meeting place for Raiffeisenbank employees, customers and visitors. The focus of the gastronomy is on regional, fresh and healthy products.
The “Raiffeisen corner” was officially opened in a small ceremony on June 8, 2022; the grand opening took place on 10, 2022 with an open day and many highlights. With its new headquarters, Raiffeisenbank St. Pölten eGen wants to set an important example for the region.
Employees in both the branch and administrative areas have modern workstations at their disposal. In the administration area, the office workstation is no longer tied to a specific seat – i.e. employees can choose a free workstation and log into the system using QR codes on their desk. The desk can be ergonomically adjusted at the touch of a button. The building technology behind it is also adapted to this. For example, the CO2 concentration is measured in the ventilation duct of the exhaust air – if this value rises, the air volume is automatically increased.
The building is heated and cooled by a brine-to-water heat pump and 28 deep probes, each reaching 150m into the ground (vertical collectors) and thermally pressed. This allows a large part of the building to be cooled passively – i.e. only the water circulating through the deep probes cools the entire complex. On hot summer days, the reversible heat pump becomes a cooling machine and ensures pleasant room temperatures. Due to the limited space available, the deep boreholes were drilled under the floor slab on the 2nd basement level so that no additional space was required. The heat dissipation and the removal of heat (room cooling) from the building is largely achieved vie component activation and underfloor convectors. At the heart of the system is predictive control system for the building that takes weather forecasts into account, works extremely efficiently and saves energy. A conventional split air conditioning system, which is often perceived as uncomfortable (draughts), does not exist in the entire building! There is also a photovoltaic system on the roof, which generated electricity for the heat pump on site, among other things.
Structural design:
The building consists of 2 basement floors, 1 first floor and 4 upper floors and was constructed from reinforced concrete. IN addition to the bracing staircase cores, the vertical load transfer is mainly via spun concrete columns in exposed concrete quality.
The design of the event room on the first floor, with a span of approx. 14m, posed a structural challenge. The wish not to increase the ceiling thickness of 25cm was met by arranging a floor-to-ceiling truss on the floor above, which absorbs the building loads and transfers them to the adjacent columns and walls.
Fire protection:
In order to do justice to the spatial concept of an open and lively place, the fire protection concept was also adapted to the requirements of the building. On the first floor, the staircase connecting all floors is connected to the restaurant and an event room via a spacious open passageway on the one hand and to the bank branch on the other. In order to still be able to achieve the necessary room closure for the emergency staircase if necessary, large fire protection curtain was installed to the left and right of the staircase, which is concealed in the suspended ceiling of the foyer area when not in use.
In conjunction with a fire alarm system that monitors the entire building and smoke-tight doors to the stairwell, the “Raiffeisen corner” is an example of the implementation of a modern safety and fire protection concept in a deliberately open and transparent building.
“There’s no space for geothermal energy in the city.” We hear this statement often – especially when it comes to construction projects in dense urban areas. But we think beyond that, analyze thoroughly – and find solutions where others have already given up.
For the new hybrid bank headquarters in St. Pölten, we installed 28 deep geothermal probes with a total length of 4,200 meters beneath the base slab of the two-story underground garage. In combination with a modern heat pump system, they sustainably supply the entire building with heating and cooling – without requiring any additional space. Because for us, as experienced planners, one thing is clear: challenges are there to be solved.
