2024-01-10

New school building contract in Nuremberg: ZÜBLIN to build Martin Behaim Gymnasium using timber construction

Vienna/Nuremberg, 10 January 2024 STRABAG subsidiary ZÜBLIN has been commissioned by WBG KOMMUNAL GmbH to carry out the structural timber construction as well as the roof and façade works for the new Martin Behaim Gymnasium in Nuremberg. The timber construction project also includes the construction of a dining hall and indoor sports facilities. The design for the new school building comes from Vienna-based architecture firm Caramel.

The installation of 7,000 m³ of wood on a gross floor area of 30,370 m² will allow approx. 7,000 tonnes of CO2 to be sequestered over the long term. Using wood as a building material ensures greater sustainability while also reducing overall construction time. The wood elements used in the building are prefabricated by timber construction specialist ZÜBLIN Timber at its Aichach plant, ready for assembly on site, thereby eliminating the curing times that are usually required when building with concrete. The school is being built using timber panels made of LENO® cross-laminated timber, glued laminated timber and BauBuche. The façade, with a surface area of around 6,000 m², is being constructed by ZÜBLIN using a timber frame clad with wood slats.

“Timber is a key construction material in the transition to a more sustainable way of building. We are grateful for the contract and look forward to using our expertise in timber construction in order to build the foundation for a modern and more sustainable school,” says Klemens Haselsteiner, CEO of STRABAG SE.

“The Martin Behaim Gymnasium combines sustainability with elements of a modern educational institution. The new building will be able to accommodate even more students than before, with a versatility that offers new opportunities for state-of-the-art instruction,” explains Sabine Stahl, project manager at WBG KOMMUNAL GmbH.

Modern classroom atmosphere for even more students

The new five-storey school, designed to accommodate 1,700 students, consists of a rectangular building surrounding an oval inner courtyard with a glass roof. Arcades encircle the entire building. The school is connected to the dining hall and the indoor sports facilities underground through a 66-metre-long corridor. A garden is also being incorporated into the sloping roof. Sports areas and green spaces with bleachers facing the playing fields offer a wide range of uses during school operations. The indoor sports facilities and the dining hall will be shared with another school, the Neues Gymnasium Nuremberg. Following completion of construction, the two secondary schools will form a new school campus together.

ZÜBLIN making sustainable contribution to Nuremberg’s educational infrastructure

This is ZÜBLIN’s second major school construction project in Nuremberg in the last five years. In early 2022, Ed. Züblin AG, acting as general contractor on behalf of WBG KOMMUNAL GmbH, completed the Bertolt Brecht School Centre, the most modern and largest school complex in the region, with a total area of over 38,000 m² and a capacity for around 1,800 students.

STRABAG SE is a European-based technology group for construction services, a leader in innovation and financial strength. Our activities span all areas of the construction industry and cover the entire construction value chain. We create added value for our clients by taking an end-to-end view of construction over the entire life cycle – from planning and design to construction, operation and facility management to redevelopment or demolition. In all of our work, we accept responsibility for people and the environment: We are shaping the future of construction and are making significant investments in our portfolio of more than 250 innovation and 400 sustainability projects. Through the hard work and dedication of our approximately 79,000 employees, we generate an annual output volume of around € 17 billion. Our dense network of subsidiaries in various European countries and on other continents extends our area of operation far beyond the borders of Austria and Germany. Working together with strong partners, we are pursuing a clear goal: to design, build and operate construction projects in a way that protects the climate and conserves resources. More information is available at www.strabag.com.

Stuttgart-based Ed. Züblin AG, with approximately 15,000 employees and an annual output of around € 4.5 billion, is one of Germany’s largest construction companies. ZÜBLIN, which has been successfully realising challenging construction projects in Germany and abroad since 1898, is the STRABAG Group’s leading brand for building construction and civil engineering. The range of services covers all construction-related tasks – from complex turnkey construction, civil engineering and tunnelling to construction logistics, structural maintenance, ground engineering and timber and steel construction. Supported by the expertise of its Zentrale Technik competence centre, ZÜBLIN also offers integrated design-and-build services from a single source. We take an end-to-end view of buildings over their entire life cycle, with a focus on collaborative construction using our TEAMCONCEPT® partnering model while constantly promoting and advancing the topics of digitalisation, sustainability and innovation. Together within the STRABAG Group and with our external partners, we are working systematically to make the design-and-build processes resource-friendly and climate-neutral. Current ZÜBLIN construction projects include the EDGE East Side Berlin high-rise project, the US military hospital in Weilerbach and the approximately 2 km long airport tunnel in Stuttgart. More information is available www.zueblin.de.

ZÜBLIN Timber stands for ambitious and pioneering solutions in all areas of timber construction. We are a single-source provider for the development, production, delivery and execution of high-quality timber construction systems – from the supply of structural parts to complex timber engineering and façade construction to turnkey project execution. We work hand in hand with our clients to develop efficient solutions and a sustainable quality of life.