Danakil Kilmatezone

Location: Erfurt, Germany

Client: Erfurter Garten- und Ausstellungs GmbH
Date: 2016 Restricted Competition
Total Area: 4,718m²
Budget: €19.9 million

Team credits:  

AZPML: Alejandro Zaera-Polo, Maider Llaguno-Munitxa, Guillermo Fernandez-Abascal, Manuel Eijo, Ivaylo Nachev, Vincent Parquet, Silvia Diaz

Spreier-Trenner: Daniel Spreier, Tanja Hofer

EMPTY:  Matías Pintó D’Lacoste, Gabriela Freese

Bollinger + Grohmann: Kim Boris Löffler, Agnes Weilandt

EWT- Ingenieure: Alexander Klein, Jens Benker

Rainer Schmidt landschaftarchitekten: Rainer Schmidt, Leslie Iturra

Images: SBDA

Model: Monath + Menzel

Our proposal is aimed to create a system where architecture, structure, technical installations, landscaping and exhibits are integrated to emulate natural environments and to synthesize ecosystems and their conditions. The goal is to offer audiences a comprehensive tour that will translate into a wide variety of memorable experiences: biology and life experiences, but also architectural and landscape experiences.

The two settings—desert and tropical—are opposing extremes of a geological and biological cycle contained in two greenhouses. Desert and Tropics can be explored separately, but they can also be experienced one after the other, as adjoining spaces, illustrating the many ways in which they are connected. One ends where the other begins. The project enables the control the foot traffic so that on peak days the itinerary can only be done in one direction. As the tour has two levels, visitors will also have to ascend and descend: a steady slope in the desert, and a gentle floating ramp among the trees in the jungle.

The ecosystems are thermodynamically connected, and exchange heat and humidity to minimize the energy consumption of the complex. The greenhouses were to be built integrally in timber, with an ETFE membrane, in order to reduce embodied energy to the minimum.