The masterplan design was developed for a consortium led by the municipality of Heilbronn and the Dieter Schwarz Foundation. With their desire to create a campus prestigious enough to compete with world-renowned tech hubs from Silicon Valley to Shenzhen, MVRDV’s design needed a bold, recognisable gesture. The decision to inscribe the buildings of the masterplan in a circle will make the Ipai Campus instantly recognisable, serving as a branding tool that raises its profile worldwide – even being visible in satellite photos.

Most of the buildings take simple rectangular forms and have consistent heights of 27 metres, making them efficient to construct with modular grids and bio-based materials. At the heart of the plan, a number of “specials” stand out from the crowd, with unique typologies, iconic forms, and taller structures marking the campus skyline. The most impactful of these is the communications centre, a round tower that sits on the central plaza at the heart of the plan and acts as a point of contact for the public to interact with the work of the campus, with space for events, exhibitions, conferences, a visitor centre, and a training centre. The programming of these spaces, which aims to entice the public to interact with AI, was conceived in cooperation with Berlin-based experts for placemaking REALACE.