Archive

Liza Heilmeyer and Stephan Birk took a trip down memory lane with the magazine wettbewerbe aktuell: "The summer of 2003, after we graduated from the University of Stuttgart, brought record temperatures and, initially, gloom regarding our career prospects. There were no vacancies in architecture firms in the midst of the construction crisis. The general recommendation for graduates was to look for another field of activity. The fact that this did not happen in our case is thanks to Kurt Ernsting, a textile entrepreneur with an affinity for architecture in the Münsterland region..."
It all started in 2004/05 with the car park in Coesfeld-Lette.

The new AWS depot on Gingener Straße offers a clear and functional response to a challenging urban context. Positioned between residential buildings and an adjacent industrial zone, two precisely placed structures define and organize the site. A compact operations building along the street edge houses offices, changing rooms, and a canteen, while also acting as a noise barrier for the neighboring housing. In the southern section, a generous canopy shelters all waste collection vehicles, ensuring efficient use of space. Together, the buildings establish a coherent site layout and support smooth operational processes. The facility has now been completed and officially put into operation.

After an intensive period of planning and construction, classes have begun in the new school building of the Betty Hirsch School Centre of the Nikolauspflege in Stuttgart. On the traditional and topographically challenging site at Kräherwald, a fully accessible school building has been created—tailored to the needs of blind, visually impaired, multiply disabled, and deafblind children, as well as students without disabilities. The building sets new standards for inclusive education: flexible learning spaces, clear orientation aids, safe movement zones, and modern technical equipment provide ideal conditions for collaborative learning and self-directed education. A future-oriented place of learning that not only enables participation—but actively embodies it.

Construction of the new HLRS III high-performance computing center has begun on the southern edge of the Vaihingen campus of the University of Stuttgart. The new building will complement the existing HLRS I and II facilities and create additional capacity for research and applications in the field of high-performance computing (HPC). The design is being developed in collaboration with Benthem Crouwel Architects from Amsterdam.
The building is divided into two clearly separated areas: the central, column-free server room with adjoining technical zones for power supply and cooling, and a three-story office wing with workstations and visitor areas. A vertical access corridor connects the two areas and provides insights into the technical processes. The architecture follows a compact cubature with an optimized floor plan. The façade design combines technical, safety-related, and design requirements. Integrated photovoltaic elements support sustainable energy generation. The new building is designed as a hybrid construction of reinforced concrete, wood, and steel. The supporting structure in the server area, made of laminated veneer lumber beams, allows maximum flexibility for future adaptations. A central element of the energy concept is the use of waste heat from the supercomputer: this is processed in a new waste heat center via heat pumps and fed into the campus network as local heating via an underground pipe system. At full load, up to 50% of the heating energy required by all university buildings on campus can be covered by waste heat utilization in the future.