The Dutch studio MVRDV has won a competition for the design of an innovation park, called Innovation Park Artificial Intelligence (Ipai) in Heilbronn, Germany. With a circular design, the plan is to position the campus as a world reference for the constant and future development of Artificial Intelligence technologies.

A variety of fields such as business, development laboratories, incubators, communication center, education, housing and amenities such as restaurants, converge making this hub an attractive place to live and invest. This Innovation Park Artificial Intelligence also becomes a tourist center for the curious and like-minded to learn about these technologies that seek to change the world.

The 265,000 square meter Innovation Park Artificial Intelligence (Ipai) campus is expected to become a global landmark dedicated to the development of “ethically responsible” Artificial Intelligence.

Wanting to create a campus capable of competing with world-renowned technology centers like Silicon Valley and Shenzhen, MVRDV needed to create a space that was bold, innovative, differentiable, and recognizable. The decision to inscribe the master plan buildings in a circle will make the Ipai Campus instantly recognizable, serving as a branding tool that raises its profile around the world, even being visible in satellite photos.

Most of the campus buildings take simple rectangular shapes and have constant heights of 27 meters, making them efficient to build with modular structures and bio-based materials.

The programming of these spaces, which aims to engage the public to interact with the AI, was conceived in cooperation with Berlin-based venue creation experts REALACE.

During operation, the campus’s power consumption will be around 80% less than a typical campus of the same size. Bioclimatic façades and energy-efficient building services help minimize the energy needed to run the campus, while renewable energy is produced locally through wind turbines and solar panels using batteries and in-ground heat and cold storage. 

The landscape design will foresee the transformation of existing grasslands into forests and orchards, which according to MVRDV “will serve as testbeds for artificial intelligence technology related to biodiversity and agriculture.”

“The developments we have seen recently in the field of AI demand the attention of people from all walks of life, and with this design, we create a compact campus for this to happen,” said MVRDV founding partner Jacob van Rijs.