Extension of the Parking Garage at the Leipzig Zoo

As with the parking garage constructed in 2004 at the Leipzig Zoo, the bamboo façade is also the central motif of the extension completed in 2011. The shell lends the large garage—otherwise just a steel skeleton structure—a hint of the exotic world of the zoo, both visually and haptically. Several thousand of the story-high, ten-centimeter-thick stalks of quick-growing bamboo from Columbia were arranged in rows with an axial distance of sixteen centimeters. The extension abuts a triangular plot of land north of the existing parking garage and offers approximately eight hundred additional parking spaces on five levels. Unlike the first building, the independent extension features distinctive undulations along both lengths of the façade that heighten the sense of the unfamiliar and moves the building’s mundane function even further into the background. The bamboo façade also minimizes noise emissions and allows for ventilation and natural lighting. As a “fifth façade,” the roof surface contains extensive greenery and is used for the capture of rainwater.