Erlebnis-Hus St. Peter-Ording

The new Erlebnis-Hus in St. Peter-Ording marks the culmination of the expanded beach promenade as part of a landscape project that emerged from a competition win in collaboration with the landscape architects Uniola. It aims to serve visitors of all ages and backgrounds as an inclusive meeting point, deeply rooted at a local level in both form and function, while radiating a strong regional identity. The construction is inspired by the local pile construction methods. It consists of an exposed load-bearing structure made of laminated timber, within which five oversized solid wood cubes are inserted at various heights and positions. The project's task was to find a sustainable, ecological, and innovative solution, contributing to the attractiveness of the location, both from a tourism and societal perspective. Each of the five cubes of the structure serves a distinct purpose: they house an analog game venue, an information center + shop, a restaurant, a staff office, and sanitary facilities. The individual cubes are enclosed on three sides with a suspended wooden facade and open on one side with oversized windows, providing impressive views of the sea, the adjacent biotope, the promenade, and the distant landscape. A large number of terraces and stairs make the building accessible and usable on multiple levels outdoors, while a reinforced concrete core with an elevator and infrastructure rooms stabilize the emblematic wooden structure. Play equipment integrated into the wooden sculpture invites visitors to interact with the building and encourages them to play in and around the house. What makes this building unique is that it is a freely exposed timber structure on the German North Sea coast, reinterpreting the typical local pile construction and transforming it into the 21st century. Our client calls it the new landmark of the area. Our approach was not only to create a building but a place that is bringing people together. According to the motto “play in, on, under, next to and around,” the Erlebnis-Hus is a place that offers a program for everyone — regardless of age, origin or physical limitations. Because the various activities are spread all over the building, people discover, interact with the house and move around it, creating a lively atmosphere and a new meeting place. As a sustainable contribution we tried to use renewable and local materials whenever possible. Having used 480m³ Siberian Larch and 2,500m² laminated veneer lumber (equivalent to 300m³) the building saves of 780 tons of CO2. Creating architecture that touches and appeals to people, creating barrier-free meeting places and thus doing justice to social sustainability, are important themes in all our designs. Whether in urban planning, building construction or scenography, we have found that a design that engages everyone is not only a lot of fun to develop, but is also very positively received by people after completion and inspires them.