The Dutch designed a campus for the development of artificial intelligence. From a height it resembles a monoscope – News

The combination of a commercial campus, laboratories, a startup innovation center, housing, a communication center, as well as restaurants and a kindergarten will turn the area not only into an attractive place to work, but also into a destination for curious visitors.

With its recognizable circular plan, the design aims to create a world-leading location for the development of artificial intelligence technologies. The draft master plan was developed for a partnership project between the municipality of Heilbronn and the family foundation of entrepreneur Dieter Schwarz.

The decision to design the master plan buildings in a circle will make the IPAI campus instantly recognizable and clearly visible even on satellite photos. A 1.2-kilometer-long path runs around the campus buildings, which will support various activities enlivening the area of ​​the campus, including a running track, a skate park, a grandstand and views of the surrounding area.

Most of the buildings have simple rectangular shapes and are 27 meters tall, so they can be efficiently built with modular elements and biological materials. At the heart of the plan is a series of “special buildings” standing out from the crowd with more original shapes and greater height. They will then form the panorama of the campus. The most impressive of them is the communication center, the round tower. It will stand on the central square in the heart of the campus and is supposed to function as a contact point for the public.

“The developments we have seen recently in the field of AI require the attention of people from all walks of life, and with this idea we are creating a compact campus to make this happen,” said MVRDV founding partner Jacob van Rijs at the launch of the project.

Forests, orchards and meadows will thus begin to grow in a part of Heilbronn that is currently pasture, serving as a testbed for artificial intelligence technology related to biodiversity and agriculture. The campus should have leading experts developing AI. Thanks to the campus, the public should get a closer look at their work.

The natural features are meant to reduce the campus’s carbon footprint. Bioclimatic facades and energy-efficient building services are intended to help minimize the energy needed to operate the campus, while renewable energy will be produced locally through wind turbines and solar panels and stored in batteries and ground storage.

The project was also created in collaboration with LOLA Landscape Architects with Thornton Tomasetti, Studio Animal-Aided Design, Berlin-based specialists in designing places for special purposes Realace, consulting company Peutz Consult and engineering company Gruner Deutschland. Construction will begin this year and the project should be completed in 2027.