ESO, the European Organisation for Astronomical Research in the Southern Hemisphere, is the foremost intergovernmental astronomy organization in Europe and the world's most productive astronomical observatory. ESO operates three sites in Chile — La Silla, Paranal and Chajnantor — on behalf of its fifteen member states. Together with its international partners, ESO built ALMA (Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array) and is presently designing the European Extremely Large Telescope (E-ELT).

The new annex marks an important moment in ESO’s history, as it brings the complete ESO staff in Garching together on one site, facilitating valuable collaboration, as well as providing a technical building for ESO’s most advanced instruments to be assembled, tested and upgraded.
These two buildings — an office and conference building of 10.300 square metres and a technical building of 2.900 square meters — and their surroundings cover more than double the current area of the ESO Garching Headquarters.

The extension was designed to complement the original building (Architects: Fehling+Gogel). The office building, implementing a similar curved shape, boasting two inner courtyards, makes extensive use of natural light sources. The technical building is a cylinder construction with a diameter the size of the 39-metre primary mirror of the E-ELT.

Both new buildings have been labelled green buildings due to the significantly lower energy consumption typical for buildings of this size. This is achieved with the well-insulated facade and intense wall and slab insulation. The office building is heated and cooled through concrete core activation — using ground water, which is fed into with a heat pump. Additional heat energy is supplied with district heating utilizing geothermally heated water.

Client:
European Organisation for Astronomical Research in the Southern Hemisphere (ESO), Garching, Germany

Architect - General Planner:
Auer Weber, Architekten BDA
Munich, Germany
Philipp Auer, Stephan Suxdorf (managing partners)
Martin Klemp (project manager associate)
Christian Richardt (deputy project manager)
Heinz Wendl (construction manager), Dominic Horn
(assistant construction manager)
Birte Böttger, Sascha Dehnst,
Joachim Esser, Stefanie Kahle,
Jakob Plötz, Ingo Pucci (project team)

Landscape Architect:
Gesswein Landschaftsarchitekten, Ostfildern, Germany
naturaplan, Gauting, Germany
Cost calculation, Call for Tenders, Site supervision:
Wenzel + Wenzel Freie Architekten
Dipl. Ing. Partnerschaft, Munich, Germany
Structural Engineer:
Mayr | Ludescher | Partner, Munich, Germany
Technical Installations, Energy concept, Thermal Building, Physics, Façade:
DS-Plan Ingenieurgesellschaft für ganzheitliche Bauberatung und Generalplanung mbH, Stuttgart, Germany
Lighting Design:
Schmidt König, Munich, Germany
Architectural Acoustics:
Müller-BBM GmbH, Planegg, Germany
Soil Expertise Surveying:
mplan eG, Munich, Germany
Coordination of health and safety measures:
Ingenieurbüro Dingethal baulog.com GmbH, Munich, Germany
Fire Protection Consulting: hhpberlin, Munich, Germany
General Contractor: BAM-Germany

Photos: Roland Halbe