Campus Emilie

Lippe aktuell, 10 May 2006, p. 5

Detmold (ab). The College in Detmold opened its doors again last weekend to provide information about the many and varied possibilities and directions for study. The Departments of Civil engineering, Architecture and Interior Architecture presented their theses and semester papers, organised workshops on various topics and areas of teaching, and provided course guidance for prospective students. The construction site of the Emilie Campus was the central topic. The project was introduced in detail with models, information panels and videos. However, the main attraction was undoubtedly the opportunity to have oneself swung above the construction site in a safety cage by crane in more than thirty metres’ height. That provided a marvellous view of all of Detmold for the courageous, which many used to show friends from out of town a “flight over the construction site” in the finest weather. As Birgit Schneider, who had come here for the weekend from Leipzig to visit friends, said, “I think the idea is very original, and of course it’s perfect if one has someone along who knows the place.” 

It was all only possible thanks to crane driver Stanislaw Malhowski, who celebrated his fiftieth birthday on Sunday and had to stand in for a colleague who had fallen ill. The “air cinema”, too, was impressive. Entering this room brought one into the middle of a retired hot balloon, being blown up by a powerful fan. Visitors to the light laboratory were shown that light plays an essential role in the design of spaces and buildings. Here, students learn that when it comes to lighting effects and moods, nothing is left to chance. Professor Harald W. Gräßer explained. “Designing rooms with light is what it is all about.”

Picture: A bird's-eye view gives a good idea of the real size of the construction site. Click to enlarge the picture.
Photo: Barnekow

Lippe aktuell, 1 Aug. 2007, p. 2

Detmold (ab). On 31 August, it will be ready: the expansion of the College in Detmold to the area of the former Emilie Barracks will then be finished. That means that the construction schedule of the project with 6000 sq. m. of usable space has been held to since it was launched in September 2005, and the financial framework too, amounting to €19 million, has not been exceeded. But these bare numbers, recounted off-handedly, cannot begin to do justice to describing this construction project.

Usually in a construction project, the roles are clear: on the one hand, you have a client, who usually knows little about construction, and on the other there are the planners. But what if the same experts are basically present on both sides, so that there is little possibility for a competition of ideas, goals and focus – which then threatens to make realisation of the project difficult?

The Construction and Property Management Office of the state of North Rhine-Westphalia (BLB), as a client, had exactly this problem in 2003, because the future users included certified experts: the teaching staff and students of the departments of architecture, interior architecture and civil engineering. The solution was found in a competition which the BLB tendered in 2003, which was open to all colleagues of both institutions and to the students at the University of Applied Sciences. Of the 58 drafts submitted, two – both of them by students – were selected as winners by the jury, of which one was chosen in revised form to be planned and built. The executing office was the “Emilie Workshop”, established specifically for this purpose. “The construction site itself is to be a workshop”, said engineer Heinrich Micus, explaining the concept. The Detmold branch office chief of the BLB exudes enthusiasm for the project. Such a laboratory building has been newly built for Department 3 (Civil engineering) with a central three-storey building-materials laboratory. In future, tests on materials weighing tonnes with trusses can be carried out here, thanks to a crane which can lift and move loads of up to 12.5 tons. The building also contains conference rooms and other labs for investigating foundations, asphalt, hydraulic engineering and sound.

Another eye-catcher is the new institute building for the Department 1 (Architecture and Interior Architecture), with central facilities for the entire campus. The foyer, the library, the canteen and the kitchen are located in the ground floor of the 96 metre long “Riegel” (“bolt”).

Above the library in the first upper floor is a fully equipped joiner’s workshop, in which even unusual ideas can be fully realised on the spot. A very thick floor which absorbs the sound of the workshop machines guarantees that readers on the storey below are undisturbed.

Parallel to their work in the Emilie Workshop, students and teachers are developing further strategies and ideas for various parts of the new building. This “patchwork” provided numerous interesting details, both major and minor, for the interior design and equipment. Thus, the colours of the new façades pick up on the various colourings of the surrounding old buildings; students with chromaticity diagrams chose them with great care. The design of the toilet dividing walls was also obtained from such “patchwork” contributions.

The parking level between the institute and the lab building which provides a major portion of the 350 parking spaces was newly built. Project manager engineer Ulrich Lesmann and the site supervisor, engineer Dieter Lalk, both of the BLB, are very satisfied with the progress of the work. “We’re going to finish on time,” says Lesmann emphatically, although a cooperative effort such as that being implemented at the Emilie Workshop requires a considerably higher degree of organisation and planning than conventional methods. “We had to tender almost every single trade,” Lalk explains; nonetheless, no additional costs occurred, Micus explains. He plans to recommend the workshop strategy to other universities. “We enjoyed this construction project”, he says enthusiastically.

The clients hope that the broad participation in the learning and designing process and the numerous smaller competitions on detail solutions will have a highly integrative effect. Thus, the students are to develop stronger ties to their university, and the general acceptance in the region will also increase, Micus believes.
At present, the former horse veterinary clinic is being rehabilitated. During the summer semester of 2008, the Paulinchen, the child care facility for children of students and university employees, is to move into the building.

Pictures: The colours of the bricks of the old buildings reflect the colours of the façade elements of the new institute building (left) on the Emilie Campus. BLB branch office leader Heinrich Micus, site supervisor Dieter Lalk and project manager engineer Ulrich Lesmann. Click to enlarge the picture.
Photos: Barnekow

Lippe aktuell 5 Sep. 2007, p. 9

Detmold (ab). Heinrich Micus, chief of the Buildings and Property Office’s (BLB) Detmold branch, had a confession to make last Friday. He had briefly played with the idea of starting his address on the occasion of the official hand-over of the new building of the College in Detmold on the grounds of the former Emilie Barracks with the words, “Dear know-it-alls, grumblers intriguers and grousers…”.
For, he continued, six years ago, nobody in Detmold, at the BLB, the College, the Ministry of Science or at other relevant offices would have thought that a project as ambitious as this new building could be realised in such a unique manner. What was most unusual was the way the cooperative effort proceeded – architects planned together with civil engineers, while students worked together with professors and BLB employees. That is simply not usual. The BLB tendered a competition itself in 2003, in which the students at the University of Applied Sciences and all colleagues of both institutions (the BLB and the College) could participate. The ultimate winners were the student group around Birte Stricker, which continued to work on the project in the context of the Emilie Workshop.
The result was a new laboratory building for Department 3 (Civil engineering) and the Institute Building for Department 1 (Architecture and Interior Architecture), with central facilities for the entire campus. The parking level between the institute and laboratory buildings, which provides a major share of the 350 parking spaces, was also newly built.

The time schedule was adhered to strictly: the construction phase of the project, with some 6000 sq. m. of usable space, lasted exactly two years from the start of construction in September 2005.
In a retrospect of the project, the deputy rector of the University of Applied Sciences, Professor Franz-Josef Villmer, praised the fruitful cooperation between all involved, and emphasised that “the students are planning their University themselves; this is something we have accomplished here” – not only through the work of the Emilie Workshop, but also by means of the “patchwork” concept, under which students of all departments have contributed numerous major and minor details to the design and equipment of the campus.
Instead of a document or keys, BLB boss Micus presented two retractable pencils of various thicknesses to representatives of the College. As an allusion to the sometimes difficult relationship between architects and civil engineers, they were a pencil of hardness “4 H” for Professor Andreas Falk of the Civil engineering Department, and one of “6 B” for Professor Jens Uwe Schulz of the Department of Architecture and Interior Architecture. “The hard pencil is for precision, the soft one for the bold swing”, explained Micus. Both are important, and have also been optimally combined in the new building, he added.

The official inauguration of the new Emilie Campus building is to take place on 12 November. North Rhine-Westphalia’s Innovation Minister Andreas Pinkwart is expected in Detmold then; he had been here, too, for the laying of the foundation stone.

Picture: Precision and a bold swing: In place of the symbolic keys usual on such occasions, presented to BLB boss Heinrich Micus (left) presented two retractable pencils of different hardnesses to representatives of the University. Next to him is Deputy Rector Professor Franz-Josef Villmer.
Click to enlarge the picture.
Photo: Barnekow