BSU Hamburg

On each floor, continuous aprons with a total length of around 900 meters and made from ceramic cladding glazed in bright colors make their way around the entire building, lending it an unmistakably cheery character.

Using five different shades of blue, red, yellow and green, the cladding features a total of twenty different colors. The façade is uniform, easy-to-understand, and breaks down into numerous colorful elements representing the diversity of nationalities, languages, religions and personalities that come together here.

The color distribution is based on a carefully planned concept that was devised by architecture firm Sauerbruch Hutton and supports the architectural impact: “Peaks” of color, each in one of the primary colors of red, blue and yellow, accentuate the ends of the low-rise building (blues) as well as the front (reds) and rear (yellows) of the high-rise building.
Between these strong color accents, gradual color gradients blend varying degrees of the individual color shades.
Along the wavy south-facing façade, the colors revert to blue in the hollow (concave) sections, while the intensity of the red in the cusped (convex) sections increases steadily the closer you get to the high-rise. This pattern is followed on the west-facing façade, which blends blues and yellows. Greens are also added to the color mix here. Along the northern sections of the façade, where the waviness is less pronounced, the color gradient is linear – from blues through greens to yellows. Likewise, along the eastern façade, the color gradient moves from blues through to reds.