The industrial area for the Bratislava branch office of Zeppelin SK, which provides sales and service of Caterpillar construction machines, is located in Triblavina, Bernolákovo. Our design proposal combines an administrative function with the repair areas, the warehouses, and the customer areas, all bound together in an architecturally interesting way.
This comprehensively designed building is located in Bratislava and our aim was to create a branch office for our long-term investor, known in the Slovak market as Zeppelin SK. The company Zeppelin SK is engaged in the sale and service of Caterpillar machinery. The operating area of Zeppelin is located close to highway D1 Triblavina, in the township of Bernolákovo. The land is rectangular in shape, on a slight slope, and is dimensionally adequate. It is heading towards the nearby highway by its shorter plot sides.
One of the approaches to the design of the new building was to create a visual magnet for our client. The new building visually cooperates with the D1 highway and the adjacent service road. The machines intended for sale should stand along the northern, well-visible side of the plot, and this fact was subsequently defined by the site's logistics design. We have put a centrally located main building behind the line, intended for machine sales. The last logistical part of the industrial complex is the operating areas for the repaired machines and technical buildings. These areas correspond directly to the entrance, where we have located the space for parking (employees and visitors). It is freely accessible to the clients during the day, including facilities for charging electric cars. All other areas around the main building are located behind a permanently closed and controlled entrance.
The proportion and layout logic of the main operating building is based on the need to line up several large, double-sided service boxes next to each other and then integrate these into the system of the collision-free area. The service boxes are connected to several facilities like service staff, a warehouse, an administrative block, and technical and operational areas. The spare parts warehouse is intentionally inserted between the repair box and the administrative block. This way, the spare parts will be distributed in two directions. The center of the layout of the main operating building is in the area of the first contact hall. From this zone, the visitor can choose several options for movement, like client workplaces for service and sale of CAT spare parts, or go to the rental Cat Store. Behind the workplaces of the first contact zone is the back-office area, including meeting rooms, tea kitchens, and hygienic facilities. In the middle of the building, we have put a generous staircase hall with a skylight and a gallery. The second floor of the main building contains a large meeting room, an elegant kitchen with a dining area, and a large rooftop terrace. There is a separate sanitary facility on the second floor and a cloakroom for service employees with their own staircase access.
The whole industrial complex, as well as the main building, are designed pragmatically and practically. The functional and dispositional programs are arranged gradually and logically from the entry, through the movement of their employees, to the production premises connected to the external handling areas. Different height requirements for individual parts of the building are reflected in the cascading roof shape. The building does not contain an unnecessarily high administrative hall, but the airy impression of the interior and the pleasant multi-dimensional feeling of the space will be preserved, with a staircase connected visually with a skylight. The facade of the building in the administrative area is formed by large horizontal windows oriented to the entrance and adjacent areas in front of the building. All employees will have a perfect overview of what is happening around them. The basic load-bearing material base of the building will be monolithic and prefabricated reinforced concrete and steel structures and truss structures. The visual expression of the facades, prescribed by the Zeppelin SK design manual, is taken into account in the administrative part of the building by a metallic profiled anthracite cladding, the materiality of the workshop part of the building, is defined by prefabricated sandwich reinforced concrete. The company's responsible ecological setting is indicated by a photovoltaic system located on the roof and south facade of the main building. An inseparable part of the building's identity is its unique interior design and its custom-made graphic information system.
Authors: Braňo Hovorka, Martin Paulíny, Marek Peťovský
Location: Triblavina, Bernolákovo, SR
Costs: 5,5 million EUR
Design: 2018
Construction: 2022
