A new headquarters for the Swiss Re, a German insurance company, is being constructed near Munich, Germany. The headquarters sits atop an underground parking garage and consists of a two story square doughnut-shaped building with 16 smaller shoe box-shaped office spaces raised above the doughnut and spiraling off of it. Wrapping the entire complex of buildings is an elevated three-story walkway covered in vines. The walkway appears like a hedge floating in space around the building.
The landscape design addresses two primary areas, the zone that lies within the hedge surrounding the doughnut and the reflecting pool in the interior of the doughnut. The design of the ground level is a series of striped quadrants spiraling out from the doughnut. The striping of the quadrants refers to the surrounding agricultural landscape. Each quadrant is a different color: red, blue, yellow, or green.
