The meeting between the IntCDC Cluster of Excellence and the Institute for Building Construction (IBK) on 7 June showed the diversity timber construction research at the University of Stuttgart, where professors and academic staff met for an open exchange format between research and practice in timber construction.
Research on timber construction is not only conducted at the DFG-funded IntCDC Cluster of Excellence, but the visiting professors Farid Scharabi and Jochen Stahl, who are funded by the Ministry of Rural Areas and Consumer Protection (MLR), also enrich the existing research and teaching at the University of Stuttgart with their many years of practical experience. They play an important role in teaching at the IBK and ITKE institutes.
In addition to his visiting professorship at the IBK, Farid Scharabi works with his office, Scharabi Architekten, on timber buildings in an urban context. At the meeting, he presented residential and school buildings that meet the typical urban challenges, such as noise pollution, listed areas and narrow gaps between buildings.
Jens Ludloff, chair of the IBK, and his office ludloff + ludloff Architekten develop building projects whose spaces create a special atmosphere. With the refectory on Tempelhofer Feld, he presented a project in which the construction of the interior, with its wooden frames, makes a strong aesthetic reference to the trees that surround the building.
Jochen Stahl presented the service building II of the Mainz-Bingen district, which he supervised as managing partner of the engineering firm Fast + Epp Germany. In this timber hybrid construction project, the timber structure was developed as a plug-in system and realised in birch. Jochen Stahl is a visiting professor at ITKE, which is headed by Jan Knippers and is part of IntCDC. Jan Knippers is also deputy spokesperson of the IntCDC.
Achim Menges, Head of the Institute for Computational Design and Construction (ICD) and spokesperson of the IntCDC, reported on the research into multi-storey timber construction at the IntCDC and gave an insight into the planning of the new research building, the Large-Scale Construction Robotics Laboratory (LCRL). The building is currently in the planning phase and will be completed by the end of the first term of the Cluster of Excellence in 2025.
Jochen Stahl has been a visiting professor at ITKE since 2020, Farid Scharabi has been a visiting professor at IBK since 2023. The two visiting professorships are funded by the Ministry for Rural Areas from the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) as part of the Baden-Württemberg Holzbau-Offensive.
