<div>Stacked div of many angles</div>

The extension of the office of the Evangelical Lutheran State Church in Bavaria is proof that corners and edges can look very remarkable: the polygonal facade rightly attracts great attention.

Sunlight dances across the three-dimensional facade. The angular surface gives the building on Munich's Katharinenstraße a sculptural appearance. The extension for the office of the Evangelical Lutheran State Church in Bavaria appears modern and up-to-date, yet it does not look disruptive next to the nearly 90-year-old parent building.

The expansion of the building required nearly two years of construction work. The area measuring 5,700 square meters provides ample space for all the offices of the state church, which were previously scattered across small offices throughout the city. More than 100 employees work in 90 offices. The new building is connected to the parent building by corridors.

Visually, the new building also creates a bridge to the neighboring building: Saarbrücken architects Wolfgang Lorch and Thomas Wandel deliberately oriented their design according to the existing object from 1929 and interpreted the type of building, proportions, and facade division in a modern version. Original elements were added, giving the building added interest: thanks to the honeycomb steel roof and the three-dimensionally arranged facade, the extension literally protrudes from the street front. The president of the state church synod, Annekathrin Preidlová, particularly admired the "breathing" steel roof during the ceremonial opening of the building. She described the broken and stacked structure as "the crown of the new building that looks as if it is rising toward the sky."

In creating the unusual facade, a decision was made to use elastic RECKLI polyurethane matrices. The matrices can transfer any motif to the facade due to their elasticity and, depending on the type, can be reused up to 100 times. After the requirement for a pyramid-like surface with a smooth texture was established, the RECKLI carpentry workshop, in close collaboration with the client, produced a design model that corresponds to the later surface, known as a positive model. An additional surface sealing of the model ensured that a very smooth surface of the elastic matrix was created.

After acceptance by the client, the structure was milled using a CNC machine on an MDF model board, which served as a positive model for the matrix. An elastic polyurethane matrix was then produced from this model, which was used in the actual construction.

RECKLI provided the matrices to prefy LANG (based in Austria), where the elastic forms were directly glued into the formwork, cast with concrete, and created the structure of the concrete elements. After delivery to the site, these elements were hung in front of the facade. A static assessment of the facade was prepared in advance to calculate the load of the decorative outer layer. To ensure against falling, the elements were additionally anchored to the wall.

The building's equipment is on par with its impressive exterior: geothermal systems, thermal insulation, window and facade areas with optimized thermal protection, and the use of building materials with low pollutant content ensure high sustainability and ecological viability; thus, the building meets the gold standard of the German Sustainable Building Council.

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