In a tight timeframe of only 21 months, a four-story institute building was designed and built for the University of Saarland, creating a gatehouse situation for the university's eastern entrance.

The CISPA Centre for IT Security, Privacy and Accountability, was recently given an award as one of three lighthouses for IT security in Germany, and represents a focal point for informatics in Saarbrücken.

135 work places, meeting and conference areas and an auditorium have been created around a generous illuminated foyer four-storeys high. The atrium cascades over the four floors and thus forms work and communication zones on each floor. This cascade is legible on the west façade in a stair-like arrangement of glazed surfaces. On the ground floor, full-height glazing encloses presentation rooms, larger lecture rooms and the auditorium. On the first to third floors offices and meeting rooms in a range of sizes are located.

Hybrid Design Build

One characteristic of the new building is the austere façade with stepped ribbon-like bands of windows and parapets. These clustered modulations reveal the IT functions within the building.

The special caracteristic of this project is the way of its planning and implementation as hybrid design build. In the unusually brief period of only 21 months from the award of contract award and the start of planning through to handover to the client, the building was designed, planned, approved and implemented. For this, the client and the user, the general contractor and the architect have come together to form a tight construction team and the building developed together in very close period.

The design for the new Campus Centre at the University of Saarland was developed on the basis of the urban planning framework that was planned in cooperation between Veauthier Architects and the Machleidt Office of Urbanism, Berlin. The building serves functionally and spatially as a new focal point for the campus. It combines several central advisory and service facilities as well as student spaces; on the ground floor there is a range of shops and commercial units.

The central campus square, a former parade ground, is framed by the new, 90 metre long, two-storey building, making its original, strict orthogonality visible once again.

The cantilevered canopy of the Campus Centre expresses a welcoming and protective gesture. The illuminated roof is clad with translucent polycarbonate panels both above and below. During the day natural light enters through the roof, while at night the building is transformed into an architecture of light.

The staggered vertical façade elements give the new building a musical style. The structure is based on a regular, irregular rhythm that can be read as a kind of musical notation. It gives the façade a lively and balanced appearance.

The new building for the Institute for Linguistic Research and Language Technology was the first component of the joint urban planning framework by Veauthier Architekten and the Machleidt urban planning office for Saarland University.

With its classic form, the solitary building establishes a relationship to the neighbouring buildings from the 1960s and yet remains recognizable as a modern university building of the 21st century. This is ensured by elements such as the black-colored prefabricated exposed aggregate concrete elements and vertical offsets in the façade.

The three-storey entrance hall, glazed on two sides, forms the communicative and spatial center of the building, i.e. the heart of the institute, from which the interior areas, arranged on a total of five split levels, are accessed. The spacious platform areas, equipped with lounge furniture, invite people to linger, read and relax.

Teilbereiche des denkmalgeschützten Gebäudes der ehemaligen Tieranatomie aus dem Jahr 1906 wurden umfangreich instandgesetzt und energetisch optimiert. Für den neuen Nutzer, das Bernstein Zentrum für Computational Neuroscience Berlin, wurden Büro-, Labor- und Seminarräume sowie eine kleine Spezialbibliothek geschaffen.

Sämtliche Maßnahmen des Wärmeschutzes, wie z. B. Innenwanddämmung sowie Isolier- anstelle von Einfachverglasungen fügen sich in den Gesamtkontext der vorhandenen Gebäudestruktur ein. Maßgeschneiderte Lösungen bringen die Anforderungen aus Brandschutz und Barrierefreiheit mit den Belangen des Denkmalschutzes in Einklang. Heizungs-, Lüftungs- und Sanitäranlagen wurden vollständig erneuert.

The former headquarters of the Saarland Ministry of Culture, known as the Pingusson Building, was designed by French architect Georges Henri Pingusson as the French Embassy building and completed in 1954. The listed building complex consists of a nine-storey high-rise slab (the former chancellery) and an elaborately furnished two-storey low-rise building (the former residence of the ambassador). The high-rise was constructed as an uninsulated reinforced concrete structure, while the low-rise building was a mixed construction.

Due to extensive damage to the concrete façades and a wide range of energy and technical deficiencies, the entire building complex was in need of fundamental renovation.

The Veauthier Meyer office compiled a comprehensive inventory with architectural history documentation, digital plans, photo documentation with a room book, and documentation of the historical building technology. Based on the inventory and various expert reports (concrete, building physics, building climate control, building services), options for renovating the façade in line with conservation guidelines were developed and weighed up against each other.

In 2008, the core ensemble of the Christian Albrecht University campus in Kiel was listed as a historic monument. It consists of buildings from the 1930s to the 1970s that are of great historical, urban, architectural and artistic significance. In addition to the buildings, the listed complex also includes the open spaces and artistic features.

As part of the extensive study, conservation objectives for the entire ensemble were drawn up on the basis of inventories and analyses.

The implementation of the target plans will be initiated from 2015 onwards.

The new Scheer Tower building is the first of three planned high-rise buildings in the north of the university campus. The eleven-storey building with a basement extending down the slope offers office space for 240 employees.

The ground floor and basement house shared facilities such as the foyer, cafeteria and event rooms. The nine upper floors above are grouped around a central access and supply core, with offices, meeting rooms, communication rooms and ancillary rooms. Individual floors can be combined into units for specific uses as required. The top floor houses conference rooms and an open roof terrace with sweeping views of the surrounding countryside.

The façade, made of red-coated aluminium sheets, makes the building appear as a landmark above the university campus.

The concept structures future development and makes proposals for upgrading the university's outdated image.

The aim was to create an attractive contrast between a densely populated urban core area and the campus, with its predominantly modern institute buildings, nestled in an open, dynamic park landscape. The boundaries to the surrounding urban forest were redefined and clearly marked. The original, pleasant impression of the “university in the clearing” was restored.