Kempten University of Applied Sciences (DE)
New building,
Building in existing structures
Client: Staatliches Bauamt Kempten
Architecture: Dietrich Untertrifaller
Competition: 2024, recognition
Area: ca. 8.100 m²
Programme: Extension of the University of Applied Sciences BA6 with Laboratories, lecture theatres, seminar rooms, administration, rooms for teaching and research-related services, cafeteria, childcare facilities
Visualisation: Dietrich Untertrifaller
Team: Fredi Botz, Rebecca Burjack, Claire Leroy, Cuong Nguyen
Text: Gerlinde Jüttner
Planning
Statics: Merz Kley Partner, Dornbirn
Building services: Martin Rehe Consulting, Inning am Ammersee
Fire protection: Kersken + Kirchner, Munich
Landscape: AO Landschaftsarchitekten, Mainz
Space for teaching, research and further education
In recent years, Kempten University of Applied Sciences has accelerated the expansion of applied research and has almost doubled the number of students to 5,500 with an attractive programme. For this reason, the university campus is to be extended in a sixth construction phase (BA6).
The complex spatial programme of the new building includes additional laboratories for the technical faculties, lecture halls, space for central services such as video and e-learning laboratories, a cafeteria, offices for the administration as well as rooms for further education and the Bavarian Centre for Digital Care. The open car park is located in the reinforced concrete base.
Transom with high point
We have organised all these functions in a long, compact building, structured by an internal access road. On the slope towards the university, the block rises to a high point. The Business School is housed on the top floor. The daycare centre is located as a small, two-storey solitary building at the foot of the slope, surrounded by a spacious garden for playing.
The new building makes optimum use of the challenging topography, which means that less intervention in the landscape is required. Together with the use of durable and sustainable materials, in particular wood, we are thus minimising the ecological footprint. The hillside location creates ground floors on both sides, with direct access to the open spaces and squares of the new green campus.
Our design pursues a construction method that is optimised over the entire life cycle and is both economically and ecologically convincing. The modular timber construction consists of recurring and largely demountable, standardised components. This enables a high degree of prefabrication in the factory, which shortens the construction time, reduces weather-related risks and improves the quality of execution.
