Universum Bremen – a science centre
Very old covering technology with most modern materials: after choicest slate covering bright stainless steel was applied
The Universum building in Bremen became a „fish“ with nearly real scales, if viewers act with fantasy. It is the first building of this kind in Germany so that many things had to be developed anew. Stainless steel sheets geometry is based on the slug of old German covering. The rhombs are 40 x 40 cm big with two slightly edged frames at bottom and back. At the upper surface they are not processed in old German way. Side and height overlap is 10 cm. The stainless steel sheets are fixed with ordinary V4A plumber screws and a neoprene grommet. With the lowermost plumber screw a stainless steel hook was rigged at the side overlap and with this „storm hook“ the sheets were fixed additionally.
Because of the necessary conversions work had to be done with different scale widths. The base was completely sheeted with a two-layer pre-covering of V13 and a 3 mm thick, cold adhesive elastomer bitumen sheeting Vedatop SU. Every covering detail comes up to slate rules. In case of a round object and according to the „fish´s“ diameter, cover lines have to show diverse various cover sheets. Therefore conversions were inevitable. As customary for old German covering they were done in best slate technology. For the necessary conversions they had ¾ wide sheets (40 cm high, 30 cm wide) and 1 ¼ wide sheets (40 cm high, 50 cm wide). A conversion always was applied when side overlaps of 10 cm were fallen below.
Prescribed safety installations like air conditioning and smoke and heat exhaust were deepened and therefore invisibly incorporated in order to keep the nice ensemble.
