Pictures from the Agency (German UBA)

[Swatopluk]

My humble office


View from the tea kitchen window

Different views of the 'Atrium', i.e. the inner courtyard







The room called the Aquarium from the ouside



Exterior shots will follow in the next post

[Sibling DavidH]

That's really interesting.  Is that your chair in #1 and #2?  And what's the brick tower-thingy in #3?  Also, whereabouts in Berlin is it?

[Sibling Zono (anon1mat0)]

Your humble office is yours and yours alone, plus you not only have a large window but the pleasure to avoid living in cube-ville!

[Swatopluk]

It's in Dessau. The main railway station is just beyond the street. I commute to work.
The brick tower is known as Räucherturm, so I guess it was once used for smoking meat and/or fish. I think there is now a gallery below it.
That's a standard office swivel chair and yes, it's the one I use.

The inside of the Aquarium


More inner courtyard





The passage between inner and public outer courtyard.


The outer courtyard. The auditorium is to the left


The backside (East) of the building



The former railway station and the former gas works now serve as the library



Views of the agency canteen. It was high noon and sunny. No idea why it looks so dark




The left side of the main entrance. The auditorium sits in the center between the doors


The West side of the building. The is a large terracotta crossword puzzle. The rusty towers are part of the low energy ventilation system.



Some shots from inside the canteen





And again Bruno the UBA bird. It's located near the entrance to the inner courtyard. You may be able to spot him in the third picture in this post.


Btw, the black bands on the floor are not just for aesthetics but also serve as guidelines for blind people. The handrails of the stairs have Braille markings.
The vegetation has still not fully recovered from the harsh winter.
The long poles you can spot in some pictures have birdhouses on top where smaller birds of prey nest.

[Griffin NoName]

Amazing building and surroundings. What a good place to work..... I see you have a clear desk policy.

[Swatopluk]

The cleaning service will not do its job on the furniture, if something lies there. So I usually empty the desktop in the evening and put the stuff on the shelves.

[Scriblerus the Philosophe]

Seems like a pretty nice place to work, gotta say.

[pieces o nine]

That looks like a very nice work environment, Swato.

[Aggie]

Something is wrong here.....   



Oh! A government agency in an attractive modern building, that's what's wrong! Impossible in Canada.

[Swatopluk]

The old UBA building in Berlin (now used mainly by the administrative department) is far more normal. It is the former headquarters of the Reichsarbeitsdienst and later housed a print and publishing company.

http://www.berlin.de/imperia/md/images/bacharlottenburg-wilmersdorf/bezirk/gebaeude/umweltbundesamt/080910umweltbundesamt_004.jpg

Since building codes have changed and are to change even more in the future towards environmentally friendly practices (low energy consumption etc.), the new building (5 years old this month) was intended to serve as a role model.
Of course it was also part of the horse trade between the federal government and the Länder (states) that led to the migration of the agency from Berlin to Dessau in the first place. After the German reunion each of the 5 new Länder had to get a federal agency too and Sachsen-Anhalt got the UBA.

[Lindorm]

Very nice offices, and very interesting to finally get to see the Sanctum Sanctorum of tea-making!  

Are the ponds surrounding the building used for water treatment? I do know that some experimental environmental low-impact sites here in Sweden have used decorative ponds for grey water treatment, so I was wondering if it was a widespread practice.

[Swatopluk]

No, I fear the pond is purely decorative (although it might be used in case of fire). There is fish in there, although I am surprised about that since there is quite a large heron population in the area that could probably eat the pond empty in a few minutes.

[Swatopluk]

Now for a change some pictures from my humble (I hope) living quarters.






This is the view out my window



That camera sometimes tends to pretend it is dark when is actually blindingly bright. All those images were done at the same time

[Sibling DavidH]

Looks like a nice flat and a pleasant area.  You're like us, books piled on every surface. 

[Griffin NoName]

mmmm  books. I like books.