Construction has begun on the new campus of the Innovation Park Artificial Intelligence (IPAI CAMPUS) in Heilbronn, Germany. The 30-hectare campus will serve as an international hub for over 5,000 people working on the development of innovative and responsible AI solutions. Based on the principles of openness, collaboration, and sustainability, the campus will be an attractive place to work and a destination for curious visitors to engage firsthand in the development of world-changing technologies. In recognition of IPAI’s significance in both the field of artificial intelligence and in its home country, the groundbreaking ceremony was attended by German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, alongside high-profile politicians at national, state, and city levels, as well as VIPs of the IPAI Konsortium.
MVRDV’s masterplan design is defined by its distinctive circular shape and by two off-centre axes. It envisages a business campus complete with laboratories, housing, and a central cultural building for public engagement. The first phase of construction includes many of the key buildings on the campus, and will form the core of the future campus, extending from the western edge of the circle to the communications centre and restaurant building, which define a public plaza at what will eventually be the centre point of the campus. In addition to the communications centre and restaurant, the phase includes the mobility hub, start-up and innovation centre, a sizeable “living lab”, and a ten-storey office building.
“Working in AI is very technical; people spend a lot of time tied to their screens”, says MVRDV founding partner Jacob van Rijs. “We designed the IPAI CAMPUS as a counterweight to this, with a focus on wellbeing. The site will be car-free, the landscape will be green, and many of the buildings will be tactile and made with visible organic materials. We conducted wind studies to ensure a pleasant microclimate in public spaces, allowing people to make use of the facilities that will be available. It’s a design that really emphasises the ‘human’ part of IPAI’s mission to be the global home of human AI.”
The buildings of IPAI are eclectic in character, with each one tailored to its own specialised programme. The communication centre, which will serve as the public heart of the campus with exhibitions, conferences, and seminars, is cylindrical, with an eye-catching reflective façade. The cream-coloured walls of the restaurant opposite are indented by orange “grotto façades” that create terraces for relaxation and socialising over meals. The mobility hub, which serves as a central hub for logistics and infrastructure, welcomes arrivals with a spacious atrium. The living lab features offices on the southern edge, a huge laboratory hall facing north onto the campus’ central plaza, and panoramic windows that provide a view of the tests being conducted inside. The bright red start-up and innovation centre provides an informal, collaborative atmosphere with its pitched roofs and central green meeting space. Finally, the office building features a pleated façade supporting a photovoltaic façade, while double-height social “living rooms” are available on each floor.
Since winning the campus design competition in 2023, MVRDV has developed the designs of each building through an intensive dialogue with the members of the IPAI Konsortium. To establish sustainability as a core principle of the campus, the design process was guided throughout by MVRDV’s CarbonSpace tool, which enabled the design teams to measure the impact of their design decisions on embodied carbon and to steer towards low-carbon designs. Through this process, several projects now under construction were developed with lightweight and bio-based structures, such as the hybrid timber construction systems employed in the start-up innovation centre, the living lab, and the office building. In addition, the campus, as well as the individual buildings of the communications centre, the start-up and innovation centre, and the office building, will receive DGNB sustainability certification – targeting platinum certification – from the German Sustainable Building Council.
Innovation Park Artificial Intelligence
Location: Heilbronn, Germany
Architect: MVRDV
Partners
Landscape: LOLA Landscape Architects
Mobility, sustainability, and structural engineering: Thornton Tomasetti
Biodiversity: Studio Animal-Aided Design
Placemaking: REALACE GmbH
Noise Control: Peutz Consult GmbH
Fire protection: Gruner Deutschland GmbH
Models: Made by Mistake
Model Photography: Ivo Haarman
Client: Ipai Konsortium (Stadt Heilbronn, Dieter Schwarz Stiftung, Schwarz Gruppe)
Images Credit: MVRDV (excluding Model Photos)
Copyright MVRDV Winy Maas, Jacob van Rijs, Nathalie de Vries