Stuttgart
The Gerber
The new urban quarter fits naturally into Stuttgart's urban landscape and links the Gerberviertel with the city center as the southern portal to Stuttgart's shopping mile. The shell limestone façade, whose color and design are based on the historic corner façade of the building at Tübinger Strasse 22 integrated into the new building, the tower-like northern and southern entrance portals and the office and residential development with a green courtyard area above the retail floors are characteristic of the GERBER's appearance.
The basement levels of the building house the technical and parking areas as well as the truck delivery area. The first floor, basement and 1st floor are used as a shopping mall. Above the shopping malls is a landscaped residential and office area.
The challenge in the structural design was to implement the different usage expectations - taking into account all site-related boundary conditions - in a flexible, economical and sustainable building shell. As a rule, such a building shell requires a straightforward supporting structure that is continuous from the roof to the foundations and reduced to a minimum. However, as a result of the planned utilization concept and design of the various functional areas, different load-bearing grids and therefore support structures were unavoidable. The supporting structure was designed in such a way that the interceptions were limited to one interception level between the residential and office buildings and another smaller interception level between retail and parking or truck delivery. Large spans could be realized with minimized component heights through the targeted use of prestressing without bonding in both the beams and the flat slabs.