The remit for the design of the Hilti Training Centre, located at the company’s Liechtenstein headquarters on a site already comprising a number of disparate buildings, was to create “an identity of place”. On one hand, translating the company’s values into architecture and making the new building a symbol of the Hilti brand. On the other, bringing together a number of complex requirements – foyer, testing hall, seminar rooms, offices, the Hilti Foundation, etc. – in one coherent whole. In short, to produce a multifunctional building, create a local landmark and make a statement about the stability and future of the brand.

It has indeed become a highly visible landmark. This compact building with its unusual natural stone facade sits on the highest point of the company’s site and forms the boundary with the wooded slope that rises behind it. Made of 12cm-thick uncut gneiss stone, the facade gives a nod to regional building styles and links the new building to the surrounding natural environment. Its richly nuanced surface gives this foursquare structure a feel that is both solid and elegant.
 

Robust corporate architecture – inside and out 
Economical and clearly structured, the building houses a 700m2 training space, seminar rooms and offices, broad staircases and atria unifying its complex space allocation. The technical highlight: the hall in which the centre’s users learn to use hammer drills is acoustically insulated from the load-bearing structure.

Its aesthetics are characterised by restrained white surfaces combined with stained oak for the window frames, doors, built-in furniture and floor coverings and floors of polished poured asphalt – assured understatement right down to the last detail.