The new headquarters of Centrum Development GmbH impresses with its extraordinary interior design
Restrained and elegant on the outside, extraordinary on the inside: the new headquarters of Centrum Development GmbH is a testament to a special aesthetic and a special standard. At first glance, the shiny black cube in Düsseldorf's Medienhafen appears rather reserved. However, a closer look reveals that the angular and sleek glass façade of the project developer's new six-storey headquarters plays with its surroundings through reflection. Inside, black elegance, high-quality design and special furnishings dominate: ‘The motto is: pushing the limits. Nothing can be standard,’ explains interior designer Marc Gräfe of Gräfe Design +, whose focus is on upscale interior design.
Picture: Roland Borgmann
He was responsible for the interior design of the new building, for which the client and company director Uwe Reppegather formulated very specific requirements. The connecting element between outside and inside: the colour black. This touch is continued into the sanitary rooms – to finish the sanitary technology strikingly, the choice fell on the TECEprofil toilet module with the outer finish of the high-quality TECEsquare II metal flush plate in matt black. The TECEprofil washstand module rounds off the package.
Special interior design
The cube, designed by the architecture firm structurelab, replaces a part of the neighbouring warehouse that was demolished. The closed ground floor, which resembles a base, contrasts with the floors above, which are characterised by open floor plans, clarity and transparency. The central functions are arranged at the heart of each floor.
At the request of the client, everything is kept in black, except for a striking purple carpet. ‘Just doing everything in black sounds simple, but it's more complicated than that. Black is not just black. There are shades of black that lean towards blue, and shades of black that lean towards brown-red. And that often goes together much worse than you would imagine. The great art is to match the different shades of black. At the same time, there are difficult material problems to solve,’ explains Marc Gräfe. Every room in the building makes its own demands on colour and materiality when it comes to implementing the colour black. This applies to the reception area and the conference rooms as well as to the details of the sanitary rooms. The fact that the TECEsquare II toilet flush plate can be found everywhere on the five floors, with two toilets each, and on the basement floors, including the changing rooms, is an expression of a comprehensive, well-thought-out and exclusive interior design.
When implementing this interior design, a great deal of attention was paid to the design of the sanitary rooms. Large-format glass surfaces, which are painted/enamelled black on the back, were chosen for the wall panelling. Thanks to a transmitter on the back, these glasses can be mounted with tile adhesive.
TECE solutions impress
‘Compared to other companies, TECE realised very early on that the cistern, which is in the wall for a long time, determines the design of the flush plate. And when I hide it behind a huge glass plate, at the latest, the design of the flush plate is determined by the choice of cistern for a long time,’ explains Marc Gräfe. It is a great advantage that TECE offers a wide selection of designs, materials and colours that can be selected and retrofitted to create a harmonious unit between the flush plate and the surrounding wall. Nothing was left to chance when choosing the flush plate either.
‘We deliberately chose the flush plate in matt black to contrast with the glossy glass. Otherwise, people unfamiliar with the area won't be able to find the flush plate,’ explains the interior designer. The choice of metal as a material was also deliberate: ’Because if I'm spending that much money, I want my fingers to press against metal and not plastic. Combining glass with glass was not an option in this case. I needed a flush plate that could be placed on the glass. A thin element that I can imagine as a passe-partout, only in reverse. There is another unique feature of TECE: the fact that these flush plates are only 3 millimetres thick. It's incredibly flat like no other model,’ explains Marc Gräfe.
