Groundbreaking ceremony for extension of comprehensive school in Thuringia being built using the MOLENO timber hybrid construction method

The extension building of Thüringer Gemeinschaftsschule 6, a comprehensive school in Erfurt, the capital of the German state of Thuringia, celebrated its groundbreaking on 22 June 2021. The small ceremony was attended by members of the Thuringian state government, the Erfurt city administration, the school management and, on behalf of ZÜBLIN, the heads of the company’s Thuringia business unit, Michael Stange and Christian Küffner.

The turnkey construction contract awarded to ZÜBLIN by the city of Erfurt is worth around € 6 million. The three-storey extension building with a gross floor area of around 2,540 m^² is to be put into operation at the start of the 2022/2023 school year. The new school facility will offer 30 barrier-free classrooms, group rooms and rooms for differentiated learning.

Environmentally friendly construction with MOLENO
A special feature of the new building is its construction with MOLENO, a modular timber hybrid construction method developed by ZÜBLIN. The city of Erfurt expects the system to deliver time and cost benefits. Decisive factors in favour of this construction method include the on-time completion of the building and its availability for school operation after only a brief period of construction. When ZÜBLIN’s Thuringia business unit employs MOLENO, it is tapping into the in-house timber construction expertise of ZÜBLIN Timber.

“In terms of environmental impact and sustainability, the building is a pioneering development. The load-bearing exterior walls made of LENO cross-laminated timber are prefabricated at ZÜBLIN Timber in Aichach. The conventional method of construction with concrete would have entailed a 70 % higher global warming potential in comparison and a correspondingly higher CO₂ equivalent in the construction of the building shell,” says Michael Stange, technical manager of ZÜBLIN’s Thuringia business unit.

The façade has been designed with a durable, low-maintenance weather shell made of Eternit panels to minimise operating costs. The building’s environmental footprint will continue to be improved during operation, for example through the use of efficient heat pump technologies.

“In the coming years, the city of Erfurt can and will focus on the two key topics of sustainability and digitalisation in its buildings using an end-to-end design-build-operate approach and by asking essential questions about life cycle costs and possible after-use concepts – everything that needs to be considered in advance as a builder-owner and operator. We are pleased to have found a competent partner in ZÜBLIN, a partner with whom we can address these issues in school construction in Erfurt,” says Arne Ott, head of the Office for Building Management of the City of Erfurt.

Scheduling certainty is ensured not only by a committed, goal-oriented and, above all, collaborative working relationship among all parties involved in the construction, but also by the use of locally based designers (HKS Architekten GmbH and HKL Ingenieurgesellschaft mbH) and regional partner companies as subcontractors for the finishing trades. The BIM 5D^® digital working method is also employed as an important foundation for professional collaboration.

The groundbreaking ceremony marks the official start of construction work, which is scheduled to be completed within just one year.

More about MOLENO can be found here.