Winners of the architectural competition for the faculty in Kulmbach announced

Kulmbach is home to the VII Faculty of the University of Bayreuth and will receive its own campus in the next few years. For the first construction phase of the Faculty of Life Sciences: Food, Nutrition and Health, a realization competition with an urban planning ideas section was announced throughout Europe. After two days of meetings in the Turbinenhaus of the Alte Spinnerei in Kulmbach, the jury selected the three first places and four commendations and awarded a total prize money of € 630,000.

Members of the jury

The jury, chaired by Prof. Lydia Haack (President of the Bavarian Chamber of Architects), consisted of 13 people. The six specialist judges were made up of representatives from the Bavarian State Ministry of Science and the Arts, the University of Bayreuth, the government of Upper Franconia and the town of Kulmbach. The seven specialist judges were made up of independent architecture firms, landscape architecture firms and state building authorities.

Design task: New campus on the site of the old station

The competition task was to design the first construction phase of Faculty VII. The new building will revitalize a long-standing wasteland: The elongated site of the former goods station covers approx. 44,800 m² and is centrally located in the city of Kulmbach. A campus for up to 1,000 students will be created on this site, which will enable modern working environments and interdisciplinary exchange between the departments and chairs.

The faculty already has around 300 students, a good two thirds of whom come from all over the world. From the winter semester 2024, the Bachelor's degree course in Food and Health Sciences and the Master's degree courses in Food Quality and Safety, Food System Sciences and Global Food, Nutrition and Health will be offered here. In Kulmbach, the University of Bayreuth combines its proven interdisciplinary strengths in food and health sciences with new scientific focuses such as metabolomics and food law as well as sports physiology or digital health and public health nutrition, not only in teaching but also in research.

Comprehensive room program and diverse open spaces

The competition participants had to implement the following space program on around 11,000 m² of usable space: around 4,000 m² for professorships in the natural sciences, around 350 m² for professorships in the humanities and social sciences, around 800 m² for professorships in computer science, around 5,150 m² for central facilities and around 700 m² for infrastructure. In addition, traffic areas, technical areas and construction areas had to be taken into account in the design. The planning of outdoor areas such as outdoor student workspaces, a terrace with café lounge, growing areas and seating areas was also part of the task.

These are the winners

A total of 18 architectural firms from several European countries submitted designs for the competition. In the anonymous process, the jury only found out at the end of the meeting which offices had been awarded prizes.

First prize went to the architectural firm a+r Architekten with bäuerle landschaftsarchitektur + stadtplanung from Stuttgart. In its statement, the jury praised the entry as a highly functional and economically designed faculty building. It impresses as a sustainable teaching and research location. At the same time, it is a flagship project for sustainability - this applies to the building itself, but also to the use of urban and natural resources. Inside, the design offers interesting spatial sequences and visual references that create a communicative and interdisciplinary teaching and learning environment. The planning of the open spaces makes it possible to use them in a variety of ways, to design them or to leave some of them natural.

The other prize winners are hammeskrause architekten with Wamsler Rohloff Wirzmüller Landschaftsarchitekten Stadtplaner from Stuttgart, and Schwinde Architekten, München with landscape architect Manfred Kerler, Munich.

Recognition prizes were awarded to Caramel architektInnen with Idealice Landschaftsplanung from Vienna, kleyer.koblitz.letzel.freivogel architekten with bbz Landschaftsarchitekten from Berlin, Staab Architekten with Levin Monsigny Landschaftsarchitekten from Berlin

Detailed planning and development: what happens next

With the jury's decision, another milestone has been reached on the way to the new faculty at the University of Bayreuth. The award procedure for commissioning a planning office to carry out the detailed planning and development of the project will now begin. In parallel, the development of the site will be planned and prepared from fall 2024. Construction is currently scheduled to begin in early 2028.