The new convention hall’s main volume was lowered in reaction to visual and functional references between the adjacent historic centre and the river Neckar, and in order to safeguard this part of the city’s existing communication- and movement-flow. Through constant layering, the entrance area rises out of the ground on the western side of the existing town hall. The entire composition of the construction layers shape a bankside landscape, generating highly pleasant and varied free spaces. A park, an open-air arena and the restaurant’s and café’s outdoor spaces merge into an extensive city terrace, which, in gentle restraint, interweaves with the surrounding texture of the historic centre. The idea of ‘integration through otherness’ was adequatly translated into a spatial configuration through associations like vaulting, terracing, recessing, hoppering, growing, flowing, angling and overhanging. Green spaces, promenade decks and landscape elements alternate in representing the building’s façade, surface and shell. 

The convention hall rises steadily from the ground and its height cautiously connects with that of the historic centre. The entrance area is enhanced as a maelstrom into the building’s interior, constituting an element of tension between new construction and historic structure. The reduced hight suggests the main conceptual idea of a respectful affiliation with the existing conference centre and the creation of a balanced, unhierarchical counterpart to the Jubiläumsplatz. The restraint in material and colour grants the building an adequate measure. On the outside, panels of cast stone structure the façade elements which overlap the modulated landscape.