Making the Porsche brand tangible
A place where the Porsche brand can be experienced, touched, and experienced – this is how Autohaus Starke defines its mission. This refers to the new building and expansion of the Porsche Center Osnabrück. Between raised sales areas, a sophisticated ambience, and a rounded shop window, the Swabian automaker's brand vehicles are skillfully showcased. The Emsdetten-based building services specialist ensures an optimal indoor climate with TECEfloor underfloor heating.
Foto: Mike König
The Starke Group is one of the first Porsche dealers in Germany. Both the sale of new vehicles and the sale of company vehicles have been successfully handled here since 1963. Customers and prospective customers appreciate this and come from a wide area – from Papenburg to Greven and from Nordhorn to Dülmen. "Passion for top performance – that's our motto. We want to give our customers and sports car enthusiasts the best. With our new building, we are now creating even more space for the fascination of Porsche," explains Managing Director Michael Haas.
The property is located in a mixed-use area of Osnabrück's western part of town, just two kilometers from the city center. It's a quiet, student-oriented district with plenty of green spaces – the university and university of applied sciences of this Lower Saxony city are in the immediate vicinity. To make the sale of sports cars more contemporary in this setting, the dealer had its existing building demolished and a completely new sales center built between fall 2012 and fall 2013.
The interior of the building is divided into two floors: the central exhibition hall with a gallery and sales areas are on the first floor. The reception area is slightly off-plan, and the cars are presented at a higher level. The offices are located on the second floor. Both floors are connected by a staircase with a significant height offset. A workshop is attached to the building – no renovation work was carried out here.
The interior of the building is decorated in a mix of dark gray and white. Norbert Stallmeier of the engineering firm igk Krabbe was responsible for the construction management of the new building project. Regarding the interior design, Stallmeier says: "In keeping with Porsche's corporate identity, the centers across Europe are designed relatively uniformly. This means: tiles, steel, and ceilings are dark gray – only the interior walls are white. Anyone who chooses Porsche expects classic, understated colors. This allows the brand to present itself appropriately."
An optimal indoor climate – this is also an important component of appropriate presentation. Given the size of the building, underfloor heating seemed like a suitable solution. The choice for Osnabrück fell on a TECE surface heating system. The Emsdetten-based building services specialist supplied a total of 1,200 square meters of TECEfloor.
The radiation component is particularly high with surface heating. This creates an optimal feeling of comfort even at low room temperatures. TECEfloor has a low flow temperature of 35 degrees Celsius and is highly efficient in heat generation. This enables energy savings of six to 12 percent compared to radiators. The plumbing and heating specialist Laksowski GmbH from Hasbergen was responsible for installing the underfloor heating. Managing Director Bernd Laskowski is convinced of the advantages of TECEfloor: "We have been working with TECE composite pipes for years. Our experience with them has been positive – they are easy and problem-free to install." The company produced the first diffusion-tight aluminum composite pipes back in the 1980s. TECE can draw on these decades of experience with pipe systems for its underfloor heating systems.
In Osnabrück, aluminum composite pipes specially developed for underfloor heating were used. Unlike conventional composite pipes, an extra-soft aluminum was used here. Christian Beike, TECE Product Manager for Underfloor Heating, explains: "Aluminum composite pipes for underfloor heating are usually standard installation pipes with a different coil length. While this is very simple in production, on the construction site, I don't want the rigidity I expect from a surface-mounted drinking water pipe when laying the heating circuit. Therefore, we used a very soft aluminum specifically for these TECEfloor underfloor heating pipes. This gives us a truly buttery-soft pipe that can be installed with almost no tension or twist compared to other composite pipes and even solid plastic pipes."
The underfloor heating is controlled by a gas condensing boiler, which allows each room to be individually regulated. Laskowski and his team installed the underfloor heating in the cement screed and tiled it. The pressure load of around six tons per square meter was particularly high here: "To withstand this increased pressure, we added additional screed insulation. After all, if a Porsche Cayenne is standing on it, it should remain stable," says Laskowski.
The completely renovated Porsche Center reopened in November – and now offers contemporary and appropriate space for showcasing the heritage brand.
Fotos: Hermann Pentermann