Expansion Max Planck Institute, Heidelberg Read more

In the course of the expansion of the Institute for Scientific Research to include seminar rooms, exhibition space and staff offices, the building was given a newly designed appearance facing the street. Together, the three-story extension, a single-story entrance area of the existing building and the reading room for day visitors, define a forecourt that guides visitors to the new main entrance of the institute. The extensively glazed ground level connects the old and the new building across the courtyard and can be used either as an entrance area, exhibition space or as a foyer for the seminar space.
The extension’s anodized aluminum façade characterizes the entrance courtyard and adopts the materiality of the existing building, lending the ensemble a natural elegance with its clear partitioning made of horizontal façade-bands and diversely spaced vertical slats.