The RAIQA

The Raiffeisenlandesbank Tirol wishes to completely reinvent itself and to function as a host: for services, for art, culture, enjoyment, and for overnight stays in a hotel.

The space created is to be open to everyone: for dialogue, to spend time in, or simply to feel at ease. A place for exchange and meeting that is available to be used and shared.

This space is an urban one and will be made available to the public on the site of the Raiffeisenlandesbank. It is intended to be a public square that invites people to linger there or to make use of the various facilities offered, on the other hand it should also encourage people to use it as an attractive connection between the train station and the inner city.

The central idea is to demolish the building complex of the Raiffeisenlandesbank Tirol in its present form but to retain and reveal the core of the building, the wonderfully beautiful, wide-spanning reinforced concrete frame structure of the high-rise, to (literally) free it from its loads, and as a freely usable spatial structure to make it into an atrium and hall for the new hybrid building complex (“DAS RAIQA”).

A space once densely used will become an empty space, the structure of the old bank building will become the identification structure of the new bank as the host for a variety of further functions.

Throughout the world examples can be found of the new and creative use of existing reinforced concrete structures from the areas of commerce industry and offices: here a further step is being taken in what is still the early history of sustainability.

In the north (in the direction of Bozner Platz) and east the next level functions as a joint between the hotel and the bank and consequently contains the administration and staff restaurant areas and is a double-height space. These rooms are also grouped around the internal courtyard and the hall. A large terrace is placed in front of the events hall

The hotel bedroom wings start on Adamgasse on the fourth level described above and are continued up to the ninth floor. They are made up of bedroom modules, which as functional units respect the grid of the former office high-rise. However, they are slid out of the structure so to speak and therefore load the old structure to only half the previous extent. This ensures that they do not require any major structural improvements and can fully exert their archaic strength. It is only the circulation corridors that project into the space of the structure, which has become the hotel hall. The corridors that open to the hall are reached centrally from triangular platforms accessed by the lifts. The hotel wings, however, project northwards, far beyond the hall, and frame a further courtyard with a terrace on the roof of the administration area, which is intensively planted and can be accessed from the fitness area.

The restaurant and the Skybar are hovering platforms situated on the top floor at the upper edge of the reinforced concrete frame structure and offer a spectacular 360-degree view of the Ober- and Unterinntal, the Nordkette mountain range and in the direction of Serles. This platform is reached centrally from the hotel hall and is served by a kitchen on the same level. One of the three lifts can be directly reached from Adamgasse. The slender row of suites, which thanks to this recess have private west-facing terraces in front, serves as a joint to the hotel bedroom wing that stands below on Adamgasse.

The hybrid building sits confidently in its urban setting - but is, in fact, open and transparent and is there for everybody. At street level it is gently surrounded by the curved lines of the wide projecting canopy to the shops and restaurants, which are laid out around the plaza. They extend along the edges of the Raiffeisenlandesbank property and give the main building the requisite urban frame, while also offering activities that use the square as a counterpart to the functions of the main building and open new possibilities for residents and visitors to Innsbruck. In the north this roof is reached via a planted staircase and becomes an attractive restaurant terrace, while in the east it is offered as a private terrace for the apartments in the existing buildings.

The concept of a hybrid is logically continued in the choice of materials. In order to minimise the loads on the existing reinforced concrete frame structure the aim is to build as much as possible in wood, the only truly renewable building material, which stands for sustainability and therefore, ideally, also for Raiffeisen and for Tyrol.

Modern production and assembly technologies have made it possible to use wood today as a high-performance construction material. Consequently, the columns and floor slabs of the Skybar and the Sky Restaurant level and the frames of the office cluster level can be made of wood. The use of timber will create a pleasant atmosphere in these areas and make the RAIQA building into an ecological lighthouse project.

Below this, spun-concrete columns will be used to take the increasingly greater loads.

Artificial stone paving in different shapes and sizes will give the plaza an urban flair. As a reminiscence of the former building it is intended to use the old exposed aggregate concrete façade and parapet panels in the paving so that aspects of the past can still be experienced. However, the technical and economic feasibility of this idea must first be examined.

The facades should be designed to be particularly durable. Large areas of glazing, metal mesh, aluminium and exposed concrete surfaces are to be used. External sun blinds will be protected from the wind on the upper floors by metal or metal mesh structures in front of them, or to provide even better protection will be positioned behind impact panes or mounted in the void between the panes of the thermal glazing. Through the widespread use of wood in constructing the hotel bedrooms this material will exert its visual impact outwards through the large areas of glazing, into urban space.

The RAIQA therefore presents itself as a genuine hybrid: developed through the visionary conceptual process of the Raiffeisenlandesbank Tirol, by using the existing with a completely new meaning and through the responsible and pioneering use of sustainable material.