AJR / Atelier Jörg Rügemer

Description

Architectural demands and profi t maximization come heavily into confl ict in the fi eld of retail and discount trade architecture. Yet those buildings defi ne our everyday culture and have to be carefully and responsibly considered by their planners. On the other side of the global emergence of prominent epicenter and fl agship stores, the LIDL Superstore in Mannheim is an attempt to develop contextual architecture for a simple discount trade building, which acts as a defi ning element of the corporate culture. The project tries to point out that consumption can also regards the built environment, aiming at the promotion of its good quality. The project tries to dissociate itself from the predominantly existing mono-structures of stereotypical discount chains without denying the company LIDL itself. The project intentionally counteracts the trend to develop an “architectureless” zone of selling and buying. The new LIDL store in Mannheim reduces the company’s built corporate identity to the most necessary. The main formal characteristic is the simple box; the enormous gabled roof has disappeared and is replaced by an ecological green roof that refl ects the contextual conditions. The building’s design and materiality is individual, it adjusts to the environment and harmonizes with it, while not denying its function of a retail discount store.