Covestro Headquarters – Leverkusen

Firm
  • Client Covestro,
  • size 245,417 sqft
  • Year 2021
  • Location Leverkusen, Germany,
  • Industry Manufacturing,
  • Kinzo and HENN completed the Covestro headquarters by strategically honoring the architecture of the building and understanding the culture of the employees in Leverkusen, Germany.

    The massive building is designed by HENN Architects, the headquarters Covestro now calls home. Encapsulating the company, Kinzo has prepared spaces ready for the future.

    Emerging from Bayer’s Material Science division and into a world leader part of the DAX, Covestro has grown into its own global company – bringing the spirit of a fresh new start together with decades of experience. A renewed office world revolving around activity-based working and promoting diverse spaces for engagement – the 22,800 sqm building is a hybrid of spaces, a rainbow of functions and environments surrounded by multiple living and working spaces for over 700 employees.

    As a world-leading producer of high-tech polymers, Covestro creates materials that cater to the modern world’s daily needs. From household items and equipment to cosmetic and medical sup-plies, automotive and aircraft industries, even in the latest technologies for sports and outdoor apparel. Covestro produces materials we find in the everyday, from the foam mattress we wake up on into the train that takes us to work.

    Arriving at the atrium, both the atmosphere and the interior composition project innovation. Light-weight, cutting-edge, characteristically Covestro. This monumental vertical zone transports you across the building section, allowing glimpses into the different levels and worlds of Covestro.

    into an idea lab… a cafeteria, breakout zones, a library, mixing focus working and flexible working with a 1.2 desk sharing rate. A multitude of functions throughout the building follow needs assessment analyses, interviews and workshops, guided tours and learning journeys, change management. A pilot office was built and used as a testing lab. Open to all potential users, collecting feedback for the development of the headquarters. The resulting spatial program balances around four core ways of working: communication, collaboration, concentration, and contemplation.

    The Covestro Campus has won the 2021 German Brand Award under the category Excellence in Brand Strategy and Creation: Architecture & Buildings. Kinzo’s consultancy and guidance in the development of a new workplace strategy created the network that joins the technical aspects of the building architecture together with the culture of the users. People from various departments will now be able to get together more effortlessly and efficiently – meet more casually and collaborate more directly, all within one bright new world.

    Design: Kinzo
    Design Team: Chris Middleton, Timo Nerger, Mattis Flötotto, Alejandra Horseley, Paulo de Araujo, Britta Henkel, Lena Janßen, Henning Ströh
    Architect: HENN
    Contractor: Lindner
    Photography: Werner Huthmacher, courtesy of Covestro