During redevelopment of the area around the historical Ferdinandplatz in the centre of Dresden the first prize in a design competition held for Stadtforum, the city’s new administrative centre, was won by a proposal submitted by TCHOBAN VOSS Architekten and Barcode Architects. The approximately 35,000-sqm building 
brings together administrative services that had previously been scattered throughout the city, concentrating them in a new, centrally accessible, location. Situated opposite the historical city hall and leading in the direction of very extensive areas of greenery and transport to the east, the new building marks the edge of Dresden’s old city centre. At the same time, it serves as a pilot project for further urban development on land 
which has been disused since 1945. 

The distribution of the building’s volume follows the course of the surrounding streets in a straight line stretching northeast and creates a new polygonal square to the south. The façade is horizontally divided into a base, a middle part, and a roof area, each of which has its own specific use. A vertical grid stretches over all floors of the building, creating vertical window formats that are typical of this region and grouping them in an offset pattern. On its north-west side the volume tapers to a point. Large excisions in the façades form ‘windows on the city’ on each of the building’s three sides. A façade opening with glazing spanning two storeys marks the building’s main entrance at its south side on Ferdinandplatz. A panoramic window on the first floor on the north façade has a view of the city hall opposite. The planted inner courtyard has an opening from the second to the fourth floors, making a connection with the green spaces south of the city centre.

The entire facade is impressive for its plasticity: the resulting play of shadow on the light-beige Dietfurt limestone is especially effective on the building’s base and middle parts. The graphically homogeneous coloration of the material was chosen in reference to the sandstone facades of the surrounding principal buildings.

Above the area of natural stone with its diagonally arranged reveal panels, the fifth and sixth floors 
are distinguished by an orthogonally oriented metallic façade in which alternating glazed and non-glazed panels are framed by bronze-brown coated aluminium pilaster strips. Only when looking from the front is it possible to see into the spaces inside the building. As your view of the building becomes more oblique or when you move through the urban space, these storeys merge into a continuous roof zone at precisely the height of the striking roofscape of the historical city hall opposite.