“LION Bremen”
Research Centre,
Bremen University
Being located directly in the central area of the university campus, the winning design for the Engineering Sciences Research Centre by ksg enhances the technological centre of the University of Bremen with another innovative research building. In a competition involving leading architects, the brick building with two gold-coloured volumes presents itself as an architecturally and functionally ideal building for the Bremen Institute for Applied Beam Technology (BIAS).
Project Data:
ARGE with architects BDA Feldschnieders+Kister, Bremen
Building Owner: Freie und Hansestadt Hamburg
Authority for City development and Environment
1st Prize, Realisation Competition
Two elements characterise the new building. Firstly, a plinth with a brick wall enclosing the site with its free play of windows forms the ground level. Besides the secondary rooms for the experimental hall, public seminar areas and a foyer, the plinth level accommodates research areas, which are directly accessible at ground level. Owing to this organisation principle, the hall and the research areas are arranged in a symbiosis and without being separated and restricted by vertical divisions. Wider areas and inner courtyards turn the circulation corridors into communication and meeting zones.
Secondly: the two gold-colours volumes of the column-free experimental hall and an elongated office wing with two additional storeys rise from the plinth. Centrally positioned staircases connect the office levels with a single-corridor layout to the base level. The office organisation allows for maximum communication and flexibility. Room sizes can be easily varied and team offices and communication areas can be created by means of lightweight partition walls.
The exceptional research quality requires an architectural equivalent. Therefore, the gold-coloured stainless steel cladding of the hall roof and the office façades attract attention and generate a design reference, which substantially originates from the institute’s activities. Like its neighbours, the new building singularly and perceptibly expresses what is taking place inside: research – the discovery of something new.