Paragon International University

Department of Civil Engineering

CE 340 Reinforced Concrete Structure

Case Study: SuperC Building

Student Name: Keangsinh Taing

Student ID: 17010100

Instructor: Meta Soy

Due Date: 29/04/2020

Contents
1.  Introduction ........................................................................................................................ 1 

2.  Background......................................................................................................................... 1 

3.  Objective............................................................................................................................. 1 

4.  Structure.............................................................................................................................. 2 

5.  Layout Plan ......................................................................................................................... 2 

5.1.  Ground Floor ............................................................................................................... 2 

5.2.  Basement Floor ........................................................................................................... 3 

5.3.  Upper Floor ................................................................................................................. 3 

6.  Challenging......................................................................................................................... 6 

7.  Conclusion .......................................................................................................................... 7 

Case Study: SuperC Building 1

1. Introduction
SuperC building is a student’s service center of the RWTH (Rheinisch Westfälische)
Institute of Technology at the University of Aachen in Aachen, Germany. It is located right
next to the main building of RWTH, right in the center of university. The building was the
pilot project that introduced the geothermal well “RWTH-1” as a heating and cooling system.
This project received fund from the European Union in the “LifeIII-Environment” program
under the theme “Reduction of CO2 Emission”. SuperC was designed by two architects from
Aachen: Eva-Maria Pape and Susi Fritzer. The designed and installation of geothermal well
was from 2002 and finished in 2006 while construction period was from 2006 and completed
in 2008. It was called as SuperC due to the layout of the whole building was designed as a
giant C.

Figure 1. SuperC building

2. Background
According to European Union, more than 60 percent of global CO2 emission are
caused by the burning of coal, natural gas and oil for the purpose of heating the building. The
reduction of this emission is the priority of EU environment policy. One among other
solutions for reduce the emission is renewable energy source and geothermal energy is the
only renewable energy that can be used as an alternative instead of those fossil fuels across
Europe all year round. (European Commission, 2006)

3. Objective
SuperC project aimed to demonstrate the economical and ecological advantages of
using geothermal energy to heat and cool large buildings. It planned to develop an installation
which could provide the energy required for the heating and cooling of the large building
with a 95 percent reduction in CO2 emission. In addition, it aimed to provide technical and
Case Study: SuperC Building 2

economical data that could be used as reference for future European projects related with
geothermal heat energy. (European Commission, 2006)

4. Structure
SuperC is characterized as a horizontal cantilever structure; the structure of the building is
reinforced concrete frame structure. While the bottom basement floor is set on a continuous floor
plate with a shallow footing designed. The top floor is a cantilever structure constructed by steel
frame which is supported by four welded girders with a total length of about 31 meters and a
maximum height of 7 meters. Due to its shape and the designed, it leads to sustained the cantilever
structure to up 17 meters long. (Super C - Students Service Center, RWTH Aachen, 2008)

5. Layout Plan
SuperC consists of 7 floors at the height of 27 meters measures respected to the ground floor.
It also contains 2 additional stories at the basements. The special part of the building is the cantilever
structure was constructed as the top floor of the building. The gross floor area of the building is about
7,500 m2. The give layout plan is taken from “SuperC – das Studienfunktional Zentrum der RWTH
Aachen”.

Figure 2. Section of SuperC building

5.1. Ground Floor

The ground floor is the entrance hall which has
a waiting area and meeting room of the service area for
students. It has the transparent façade and in front of
entrance, is the public square that lays under the shade
provide by the cantilever structure at the top of the
building. This available public space can be a spot for
students to gathering as well as can be used for events
of all kinds that are organized by the university.
Figure 3. Ground floor layout
Case Study: SuperC Building 3

5.2. Basement Floor

SuperC contains 2 basement floors. At the very bottom floor, there is a large multi-
functional hall for exhibition, library and archive. The second floor of basement have only
archive where all documents and any important records are reserved there.

Figure 5. Bottom basement floor plan

Figure 4. Second basement floor plan

5.3. Upper Floor

As mentioned above, the building has 7 stories and each story have different function
which will describe in the following:
 1st floor: Career Services

Figure 6. First floor layout plan

Case Study: SuperC Building 4

 2nd floor: Student Secretariat

Figure 7. Second floor layout plan

 3rd floor: Student Counseling Center

Figure 8. Third floor layout plan

 4th floor: Student Affair

Figure 9. Fourth floor layout plan

Case Study: SuperC Building 5

 5th floor: Examination Center

Figure 10. Fifth floor layout plan

 6th floor: Academic International Office

Figure 11. Sixth floor layout plan

 7th floor: Conference Hall and Meeting Center.

Figure 12. Seventh floor layout plan

Case Study: SuperC Building 6

6. Challenging
After researching through the internet, the challenging during construction of SuperC
does not appear to be discussed as well as any official information is published. Somehow,
due to the project is also focus on the installation of geothermal well inside the building; there
are challenging raised up regarding to the drilling process.
Geothermal energy is the energy that stores inside the earth at a very deep depth; in
order to get those energy the deep drilling is necessary in order to reach the energy and pump
up to the surface of the earth. Unfortunately, due to a lack of deep geological information
which give a difficulty in a prediction of strata that has to be drilled. Therefore, the technical
planning was based on two different geological profiles. However, they manage to reach to
depth of 2,498 meters in 140 days. This lack of geological information affects to the drilling
cost which exceed the estimation cost at the planning stage. (Layman, 2006, p.6)

Figure 13. Gelogical model in planning stage

Moreover, there is also a challenging regarding to emission and mainly is noise

emission during the drilling operation. To tackle this, the model of noise emission is
constructed in order to visualize the affect surround the construction place. Then, the notify
of the activity regarding to noise emission to the public and students took in action. The
drilling process was taken 24 hours a day and 7 days a week, technical as well as organization
measures need to maintain the noise under 60 dB in the day time and 45 dB in the night time.
Case Study: SuperC Building 7

Furthermore, they also consider the noise protection for inner city surround the drill which
cost them huge amount of money. (Layman, 2006, p.7&10)

Figure 14. Visualisation of the noise emission

For addition, there was a problem in finding the appropriate material for the inner
pipe. The glass fiber plastic pipe which is used as an inner pipe in the cased borehole, is
collapse since it cannot withstand the temperature. Then, a new plastic pipe from petroleum
product is used and it only reach to a depth of 1965 meters which the drilling depth is about
2500 meters. (Stadtwerke Arnsberg, 2012)

7. Conclusion
To sum up, after finishing the research; I come to realize about the technology of
using the geothermal energy as an energy source for heating and cooling system of a building
that are currently available in the European countries, which is a very new technology and
idea to me. I also bump to see the challenging regarding to the drilling process which could
help as the future solution regarding to same problem within the drilling process. Despite of
lacking of the information of the structure details and the challenging relate with the
construction of this building, I was really inspired to research more on the projects which
share similar type of structure.
Case Study: SuperC Building 8

Reference
Fritzer, S., Pape, E. (2001). SuperC – das Studienfunktional Zentrum der RWTH Aachen.
Layman, R. (2006). „SuperC“ Geothermal energy supply for heating and cooling of the Students'
Service Center of RWTH Institute of Technology University of Aachen.
Schlaich Bergermann partner. (2008). Super C - Students Service Center, RWTH Aachen. Retrieved:
from https://www.sbp.de/en/project/super-c-students-service-center-rwth-aachen/
Redakteur, S. A.-. (2012). Stadtwerke Arnsberg. Retrieved from:
https://web.archive.org/web/20120312051436/http://www.stadtwerke-arnsberg.de/energie-
klima/geothermie/pilotprojekt-tiefengeothermie-eine-zukunftsfaehige-energieversorgung-
fuer-arnsberg.html
European Commission, (2006.). SuperC - Geothermal energy supply for heating and cooling of the
Students' Service Center of RWTH Institute of Technology University of Aachen. Retrieved
from: https://ec.europa.eu/environment/life/project/Projects/index.cfm?fuseaction=search.ds
pPage&n_proj_id=2152