野生动物大使馆丨德国汉堡丨ATELIER BRÜCKNER

Architect：ATELIER BRÜCKNER

Location：HafenCity, Hamburg, Germany; | ;View Map

Project Year：2024

Category：Exhibitions

A DOOR OPENS TO NATURE: ‘WILDLIFE EMBASSY’ IN HAFENCITY HAMBURG

The new ‘Wildlife Embassy’, which opens on 30 August 2024 in ‘roots’ Hamburg, Germany's tallest sustainably built wooden high-rise in Hamburg, tells the story of the beauty, diversity and ecological importance of native wild animals. How and where do the 48,000 wild animal species in Germany live? Why are they endangered? And what can we do to protect them? The exhibition for children and families, designed by ATELIER BRÜCKNER, shows the habitats of wild animals in an interactive and playful scenography.

The 2,200 square metre exhibition space is divided into two themed areas: In the first section, visitors learn how wild animals live in Germany. As different as wild animals and humans are, their ways of life are very similar: like humans, animals also move, eat, dwell, have sex, create a family, and perceive their environment. The second part of the exhibition focusses on the coexistence of humans and animals: humans have always interfered with nature. This is neither fundamentally good nor bad; humans can worsen the situation or do something good for nature and wild animals.

ATELIER BRÜCKNER acted as general contractor for this project and was responsible for the general planning as well as the exhibition, graphic and media design for the foyer, shop, exhibition, learning workshop and nature film cinema. The scenography concept of the exhibition focussed on allowing visitors to move through the habitats of wild animals and become an active part of it: large panoramas with a hidden object, combined with aesthetic and realistic illustrations, as well as a variety of hands-on stations place visitors right in the middle of the natural environment. Playing and experiencing, marvelling and discovering, learning and understanding are the key approaches of the presentation. 8 life-sized animal models, 105 real animal specimens, 6 staged landscapes in dioramas, 5 metre-long light boxes, 3 zoetropes (wonder drums) and numerous audio-visual media stations bring visitors closer to the fascinating life of wild animals.

The 19-storey ‘roots’ is Germany's tallest timber tower block. Around 5,500 cubic metres of softwood were used for the construction alone, plus façades, windows and cladding. The natural wood material saves an estimated 26,000 tonnes of CO2 compared to the production, transport and disposal of conventional building materials. The design of the exhibition by ATELIER BRÜCKNER takes up the themes of sustainable construction and the use of natural resources:

A clear design language and simple furnishings create a connection to nature and wildlife. Using organic rice husk material in the plinth panelling creates a warm and organic atmosphere, as does natural rubber, which is also one of the materials used.

Natural and organic shapes and colours guide visitors through the first part of the exhibition and show the habitats of wolves, foxes and red kites. In the prologue, seven groups of animals are presented in a portrait: a conscious encounter at eye level with insects, fishes, birds, etc. In ‘Free Flow’, visitors explore the thematic islands of Food, Homes, Senses, Movement, Sex and Family. Real animal specimens such as wolf, deer and wild boar, real animal specimens, stand together at the table. Menu cards reveal what they eat and whether they are herbivores, carnivores or omnivores. Their teeth and digestive tract are engraved on discs in front of them and are explained using light and audio. A floor-to-ceiling tree model and a cross-section of a hill illustrate how animals live in caves or nests. The sensory area explains how animals perceive their environment, explaining topics such as how does a fly see in contrast to a human, or how does a rabbit hear? This can be modelled at hands-on stations, for example with specially made loudspeakers that look like the ears of a rabbit. An exhibition table is dedicated to each of the different types of movement on land, in water and in the air. Three zoetropes show the movements of the animals through pictures and visualise their movements. There are animal traces on glass plates that visitors can match to the animals. In the sex section, interactive games reveal everything about courtship and mating. Dioramas show the different family forms: such as the small bear family with three cubs or, for example, the northern canntes that live together in colonies.

The coexistence of humans and wild animals is the theme of the second part of the exhibition, which provides a more stringent visitor guide and has a straightforward, human-designed aesthetic. The habitats Forest, Meadows & Pastures, Field, City, Coast & Sea represent where wild animals and humans meet. Each habitat is represented by two protagonists: in the forest, for example, it is the deer and the forester, who talks about his profession in an audio station. In the meadows and pastures, the focus is on agricultural use, while in the fields it is on energy topics such as irrigation and solar panels. A highlight of the exhibition is the walk-through field: visitors can wander through a larger-than-life wheat field. There are three houses in the city habitat. The fronts and backs explain, for example, why animals are drawn to the city and those that have already been sighted in Hamburg. On a supermarket shelf you will find bird feeders and nesting aids as well as ant poison and fly swatters – it makes you think: Which animals do we want to protect and which do we prefer not to have around us? The Coast and Sea section describes the five central areas of Germany in a simulated seascape: beach and sandbank, the open sea, seagrass meadows, mudflats and bodden. Pressing issues such as noise, overfishing and introduced species are also addressed.

The learning workshop with its nature education programme is a place for free and exploratory learning. Germany's first nature film cinema shows documentaries about Europe's wild inhabitants and hosts the new Nature Film Festival, the European Wildlife Film Awards, which will be presented for the first time in February 2025.

Team:

Architects: ATELIER BRÜCKNER

Photographer: Josef Šindelka

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