Düsseldorf, Germany

With over eight kilometres of hornbeam hedges, over 30,000 plants, Kö-Bogen II is Europe’s largest green façade.

Kö-Bogen II recently won a 2021 Green Good® Design Award from The European Centre for Architecture Art Design and Urban Studies and The Chicago Athenaeum.

Designed by Christoph Ingenhoven and his teams at ingenhoven architects, the facade is an essential element of the Kö-Bogen II commercial and office building.

The ensemble marks the conclusion of an extensive urban renewal project in the heart of Düsseldorf.

It also represents a paradigm shift: from an urban perspective, it signals a departure from the automotive era and a turn towards people-oriented planning.

And with Europe’s largest green facade, it offers an urban response to climate change.

Giving back as much green as possible to the city is a task that ingenhoven architects have been working on for decades and across different climate zones.

With its supergreen® concept, the office is taking a comprehensive approach to sustainability.

Located in Düsseldorf’s new city centre, the project is where an elevated motorway once dominated the landscape; the Hofgarten has moved back into the heart of the city.

Kö-Bogen’s sloping green facades face one another in a composition inspired by Land Art.

The new building complex oscillates in a deliberate indeterminacy between city and park.

The two structures form a dynamic entrance to Gustaf-Gründgens-Platz, which opens up the view to icons of post-war modernism – the clear austerity of the Dreischeibenhaus (1960) and the buoyant lightness of the Schauspielhaus (1970), whose renovation was also undertaken by ingenhoven architects.

Kö-Bogen II is a contemporary response to these two historic landmarks, without competing with them.

With studies, urban planning concepts, and concrete projects, Christoph Ingenhoven has been pursuing the idea of redesigning the centre of Düsseldorf since 1992.

The hornbeam was intentionally selected as a native hardwood species that keeps its leaves in winter.

A comprehensive phytotechnological concept was developed together with Prof. Dr. Strauch, Beuth University of Applied Sciences, Berlin, to incorporate the hedges into the building design.

The greenery improves the city’s microclimate – it protects against the sun’s rays in summer and reduces urban heat, binds carbon dioxide, stores moisture, attenuates noise, and supports biodiversity.

The ecological benefit of the hornbeam hedges is equivalent to that of approximately 80 fully grown deciduous trees.

This integration of nature into architecture offers a contemporary urban response to climate change.

ProjectL: Kö-Bogen II | 2014-2020
Architects: ingenhoven architects GmbH
Design Team: Christoph Ingenhoven, Peter Jan van Ouwerkerk, Cem Uzman, Mehmet Congara, Ben Dieckmann, Patrick Esser, Vanessa Garcia Carnicero, Yulia Grantovskikh, Tomoko Goi, Olga Hartmann, Jakob Hense, Melike Islek, Fabrice-Noel Köhler, Christian Monning, Daniel Pehl, Andres Pena Gomez, Peter Pistorius, Lukas Reichel, Jürgen Schreyer, Susana Somoza Parada, Jonas Unger, and Nicolas Witsch
Structural Planers: Schüßler-Plan Ingenieurgesellschaft
Facade Planners– Green Facades and Green Roofs: Ingenhoven Architects
Phytotechnology – Guilding Greenery: Karl-Heinz Strauch, Beuth University of Applied Sciences, Berlin
Clients: Düsseldorf Schadowstraße 50/52, CENTRUM Projektentwicklung, and B&L Group
Photographers: Courtesy of Ingenhoven Architects / HGEsch