The lobby of the new office building.
(Photo: Visualization Ippolito Fleitz/Rock Capital Group)
The grey-brown building on Einsteinring in Dornach’s commercial area has been known around the world for around two and a half years. However, the sign with the dark blue lettering on a white background, which pointed to the scandalous tenant Wirecard, has long since been removed, and new companies are to be attracted under the new name “Vünf”. Most of the complex is currently vacant, with the famous corner block leased to a building management company.
Wirecard itself had outgrown the 20-year-old office complex at the time, so more space was needed. And so the board of directors decided to move Markus Braun, who has since been accused of gang fraud, balance sheet falsification, embezzlement and manipulation of the share price, to a newly built, modern quarter a few hundred meters from the old headquarters. More than 40,000 square meters just for Wirecard. The shell was well advanced when the dream bubble burst in the summer of 2020.
At the former Wirecard headquarters in Dornach, there is no longer any indication of the scandalous company.
(Photo: Alexander Pohl/imago images)
Suddenly the only tenant left for the complex called “Heads”, which had already grown up floor by floor at Einsteinring 30. What do you do with such a huge building that was actually designed entirely for a single, now scandal-ridden company?
The project developer of the building, the Grünwald-based real estate company Rock Capital, was confronted with a second crisis at the same time: the pandemic had significantly changed the working world with its classic office space, which was part of most people’s everyday life until then. “Many thought that such large office buildings were no longer needed,” recalls Rock Capital’s Claudia Zoric. So just dismantle the heads? Of course that wasn’t an option. “We asked ourselves what it takes to make employees happy to come back to the office.”
The answer for Zoric: The premises must offer quality of stay. In concrete terms, this means that there should also be life in the building outside of classic working hours thanks to a wide range of offers. A barista bar is planned, for example, and a yoga studio could offer relaxation. According to Zoric, the Heads should also offer enough places where you can just hang out and chat with others. Dornach doesn’t go quite as far as the big American role models – companies like Google, whose headquarters include a sports hall and two small swimming pools – but the basic ideas are quite similar.
Where scaffolding is currently still towering, a bright atrium is to be built later.
(Photo: Sebastian Gabriel)
At the moment you still have to fight your way to the Heads between construction site vehicles and tarpaulins. Gray is the dominant color in the wide atrium. Steel girders protrude from the bare walls, to which plant boxes will later be attached. You still need some imagination to be able to imagine what the finished building will look like one day. Or you take a look at the visualizations of the architects: The pictures show bright, open rooms and lots of greenery.
The walls in the atrium are to be planted with dense vegetation.
(Photo: Visualization Ippolito Fleitz/Rock Capital Group)
If you follow Zoric to the left on the construction site, you will get to the part of the building that will provide new quarters for the Essity company as early as October. The hygiene company with brands such as Tempo and Zewa currently has a location in Ismaning. Because the contract for the premises there is expiring and because the building is showing its age anyway, the decision was made to move to Aschheim.
The question of what work will look like in the future was central to the planning. “Cooperation and creativity will be important,” says Christina Rydebrink. The Swede manages the relocation project and is responsible for setting up modern workplaces across the company at Essity. In order to promote cooperation and exchange, Essity relies on open spaces instead of classic individual offices. “There will be significantly fewer walls,” says Rydebrink. With a few exceptions, no employee will have their own desk in the new building. The workplaces are shared, every morning you look for a free table anew.
One looks in vain for individual offices in the building, instead there are so-called open spaces.
(Photo: Visualization Steinlein/Rock Capital Group)
Rydebrink is aware that this can initially cause uncertainty, as she says: “Of course there are many questions and it also takes a certain amount of getting used to. But experience has shown that it happens quickly.” Elsewhere, open spaces have long been established, and nobody would build new buildings with individual offices anymore.
According to Rydebrink, despite the great openness, there should still be the opportunity to withdraw, for example for confidential telephone calls, video conferences or for tasks that require a high level of concentration and silence. There should be separate areas in Heads for these occasions, which each employee can use as needed.
On the construction site, the separated areas can already be guessed at, to which employees can withdraw for video conferences, for example.
(Photo: Sebastian Gabriel)
Volker Zöller, who is responsible for the consumer goods business in Europe at Essity, does not believe that the complex planning is no longer necessary in times of home office. “Due to the possibility of working from home, we expect a somewhat lower presence. But the office is still the place to be.” Zöller is convinced that creativity and exchange are key to good cooperation. And that will probably work best face-to-face in the future as well.