"A building where all employees can finally work under one roof for the first time". A 195-meter-long and 70-meter-wide building complex has been adding to the Düsseldorf skyline since summer 2010. With a gross floor area of 60,000 square meters and 1,917 rooms, it is one of the largest state criminal investigation offices in Germany.
The LKA NRW first moved to the Völklinger Straße site in Düsseldorf in the 1960s. As the authority's competencies grew, so did the number of employees and the need for more space. Over time, the building was no longer sufficient for all employees. They were temporarily housed in five different locations. In 2005, the Ministry of the Interior and Municipal Affairs of North Rhine-Westphalia approved the so-called space requirement for the new building. The foundation stone was laid on April 21, 2008.
Communication is written in capital letters
In summer 2010, the more than 1,100 employees moved into a modern building that impressed them with its facilities and functionality. The interior design offers employees many opportunities to get together. A total of 29 tea kitchens, distributed throughout the building as communication islands, invite employees to exchange ideas over coffee or lunch. 16 shared meeting rooms in various sizes can be reserved and used by everyone centrally via a booking system. The spacious foyer offers space for events for the entire building. Since spring 2013, the Völklinger Straße 49 site has also had a new "Cantine". Another new building that makes everyday working life a little more pleasant for LKA employees and the staff of the two ministries.
Modern technology in our building
Heating system
The rooms in the new LKA NRW are heated or cooled using the "concrete core temperature control" system. Under the building, 130 meters of pipes with probes were sunk 99 meters into the ground - to where the temperature is constant. A heat pump circulates the heating water accordingly, so that it is heated at outside temperatures below 10 degrees and cooled above 18 degrees. The ultra-modern system collects the weather data for the following five days on a daily basis in order to compensate for large temperature fluctuations. There is also a "conventional" heating system.
Emergency power
The power supply for the entire computer and building technology is ensured by an 800 hp diesel engine with 12 cylinders and a displacement of 21,910 cubic centimetres. The "Volvo Penta" powers the emergency generator in the LKA building.
Extinguishing systems
Whether extinguishing water basin or argon fire protection system - provision has been made for emergencies. In the catacombs of the Forensic Science and Technology Institute (KTI) there is a pool, or more precisely a ten-metre-long and four-metre-wide extinguishing water basin. This supplies the sprinkler system should the water pipes to the LKA NRW be cut in an absolute emergency.
The Argon fire protection system is responsible for 21 buildings in the KTI. Argon has a flame-quenching effect and is used to gently extinguish fires in sensitive rooms such as archives and collections of exhibits.
Art in the LKA
Düsseldorf is said to have the longest counter in the world. Perhaps the LKA NRW has the longest work of art in Düsseldorf? The painting by Peter Kogler takes up at least the entire 200 meters of the Magistrale on the first floor. Peter Kogler lives and works in Vienna. He is one of the world's top artists and is known as a multimedia artist. One of his specialties is the projection of shapes and moving surfaces on room walls, which he has designed on the computer. The corresponding projection was glued to the wall of the Magistrale in the LKA NRW using an elaborate technique. You can see a net in which collage-like computer-mounted image objects are incorporated. The most striking of these are Kogler's well-known ant, a human brain and the globe.