About us.

In fall 2012, the ARENA2036 project won the "Research Campus Public-Private Partnership for Innovation" competition organized by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research. In order to provide space for the new research campus, a new building was erected that offers a production environment in which the approaches, ideas and results from research can be tested and converted directly into practicable prototypes for industrial purposes. Half of the total construction costs of the new building were borne by the European Union (ERDF funds) via the state of Baden-Württemberg and half by the University of Stuttgart.

The site is located in the northern area of the Vaihingen university campus and is accessed from Pfaffenwaldring in the east. With its shed roof construction and folded aluminum façade, the building responds to the classic elements of industrial construction. The glazed plinth visually contributes to the reduction of the overall volume and allows views into the hall along the street.

In spring 2015, a competition for "art on buildings" was held, from which Mr. Stefan Rohrer from Stuttgart emerged as the winner. The folded aluminum façade of the building plays with the incident light of the surroundings. The lettering installation "More light!" on the south side picks up on this play in terms of both content and technique and leaves room for interpretation. The two words cut out of reflective foil and stuck to the façade are read as "MORE" when viewed from the west and as "LIGHT!" when viewed from the east. From the south, they appear to be pushed into each other and are perceived as an abstract structure.

The head-end building is a reinforced concrete skeleton construction that houses a foyer with a kitchenette and a seminar room that can be connected on the first floor, as well as showers and changing rooms for employees, toilet facilities and a mailroom. The three floors above accommodate office space in open-plan, combination and individual room typologies, as well as the associated support areas. The basement accommodates technical and storage rooms.

The column-free hall area offers space for a wide variety of test set-ups for versatile production with freely configurable production steps in the combination of man and machine. The area of the hall equipped with a crane runway is located between the rows of columns in an east-west direction. On the north side of the hall, outside the craned hall area on the first floor, there is a foreman's office as well as a social room and workshops. The measuring rooms are located on the eastern end of the hall on a "set" platform on the second floor. This means they can be accessed via the office area in the head building and can be reached via the crane runway.

On the north side of the hall, on the second floor, there is the office section: further offices that are directly connected to the head building via a corridor. A fully glazed, storey-high partition wall forms the end of the room towards the hall and provides a good view of what is happening there.

The building is divided into a head-end structure with office use, foyer and support functions in the eastern part of the site and the adjoining hall structure with delivery. The large structure (130 m x 46 m x 16 m) impresses with subtle design elements that integrate the volume into the urban context: The matt-reflective aluminum façade echoes the color scheme of the campus buildings. Incisions in the east and west façades and glass bands lend the complex a sense of scale.

The approx. 4,700 m² hall is covered with a shed roof at a height of approx. 16 m. The hall crane with a maximum permissible payload of 10 t spans the entire 35 m width of the hall. In terms of energy, the building meets the high standards of state buildings. In addition, there is a PV system with an output of approx. 80 kWp on the western part of the roof.