The Kempinski Hotel is the first building in the Neutral Zone of the Munich Airport. In the contrast to the airport-specific buildings of the first construction phase, the buildings of the Neutral Zone are service-specific. Today, such centers are more than just pure commercial buildings. They become encounter places for a multiplicity of population stratums for personal, commercial and social events. They mediate the first impression of the city which they serve and, therefore, become own cities too. As the first of a series of buildings, which form this airport city, the Kempinski Hotel must be seen into the cohesion with the overall plan.

The Neutral Zone site plan organizes and reinforces the concept of integration of the landscaping into the airport. Open, rethought or closed landscaping open areas indicate a synthesis with the existing landscaping concept. The concept of the Neutral Zone is the creation of varied gardens, based on their areas and constructive possibilities, with the goal to create a rich, eventful collage of shapes, colors and experiences.

In its basic form, the urban plan develops itself out of the existing plan and building structure in order to produce the compatibility with the overall concept of the airport. This is emphasized even more through the election of the materials (glass, aluminum, steel) and the colors (white, grey, silver).

The MAC becomes the natural connection to the existing construction and the Kempinski Hotel and sets the guidelines for the future connection with the Terminal East and the further construction of the Neutral Zone. Urbanly, it becomes the arranging element between existing and new. It is not comprehensible without the whole, through, takes on also the necessary own life as commercial center.

Configuration

The open areas have set boundries consciously to the existing landscape configuration. With the principle of collage, conscious manipulations are produced with axis and angle which create areal and spatial interesting overlaps. Therefore, the open areas offer different supplies for experiences which one can experience in different speeds and different times during the day or at night or season. These gardens create an experience sequence, that derives itself from function and utilizations.

Along the walkways, there is a series of linear gardens which accompany the covered ways and walkways. Where the walkway lead into the hotel, the light becomes artificial and colored.

The arrival garden which serves the Kempinski Hotel and also the MAC serves, is mainly hard out of stone and concrete pavers with overlapping decorative patterns, accompanied by a linear tree avenue and hedges.

The central landscape element is the Parterre Garden in front of the Kempinski Hotel. It is a place for strolling, resting and relaxation, like a public park. Overlapping geometries executed with hedges, grass, gravel and slim oaks create interesting areas which can be perceived and experienced from many points of view.

The Hotel Garden of the Kempinski Hotel is continuation of the landscape concept as well as central element of the hotel function. Panels of glass with geraniums arranged in an angle subdivide the hotel lobby into an entry and passageway sector and a function and seating sector, that continues on the terrace to the north. The entrance garden consists of warm, pink granite with topiary ivy hedges and pools of light. The adventure and seating sector with decorative pattern of black, white and pink stone has a bar and a pool with groves of palms, which grow directly out of the stone. The quarter pyramid-shaped metal trees with blooming vines form an avenue from the drive to the terrace. Out of natural and constructed elements, a hotel landscape was created here that agrees with the romanticism and the adventure of travelling.

The large concept developed from the overall facility of the airport was refined and developed further for the Kempinski Hotel refined and develops. The following aspects are governing and important:

Grid /Angle / Decoration

The building mass of both wings are executed in the strict orthagonal grid. The subdivision at the facade leads to a 1 x 1 m grid that continues as shell (wrapping) over columns, ceiling edges and roofs. Towards the hotel lobby and terrace, traffice elements like elevators, stairs and corridors are put in front of these elements. A frameless glass wall creates definition as well as transparency to the foyer. The geranium glass walls are the third element of this layering and create a combination between the architectural and landscape elements. The fourth wall type is the high-tech glass rope wall which necessarily separates drive, hotel lobby and terrace, although also visually connects through its transparency. So the whole area sequence becomes the stage with view of the Alps in the south and Freising to the north.

All these walls have been executed in glass with different coating, in order to reach an appropriate material quality and transparency. The outcomes are multi-layered, wanted and partially involuntary, and of a constantly changing appearance, sometimes of a textiles quality of the surfaces.

The design intent of the "collage" leads to the introduction of the angle which was derived from the roof geometry. This angle stamps the floor and ceiling areas in a two-dimensional manner and the metal trees in three-dimensional form.

At the end, design is not efficient alone, but also intuitiv and therefore, wanted to a certain degree. The decorative surfaces derived from the logic of the building geometry, the consequences of the collage, technical manufacture possibilities and constructive necessities. Consequently, there is a connection between construction and decoration: We don't construct decoration, but decorate construction.

Technology

The building uses the latest state of the art in consideration of glass and steel constructions. These constructions are open and visible, however, do not become self purpose. The most important and most visible elements of this struggle with form and construction are:

• Rope stressed cross bow roof with glazing in supporting steel framework.
• Rope stressed glass walls with point-fastened ESG.
• Frameless point-fastened "screen" glass walls.
• Axis-wide, room-high prefabricated aluminum glass facade elements.
• Projecting all-glass walls with geraniums.
• Elevator lobbies and main stairway with glass floor.

More conventional is the technology of the reinforced steel structure and the mechanical heating, air condition and ventilation. All occupation areas are fully air-conditioned.

The hotel lobby is heated, with supporting cooling. Thereby, minimal energy is used and a thermal buffer zone to the adjoining rooms is created.

The building is fully sprinklered. All hotelrooms have smoke detectors. A security system supervises all entrance doors.