GabyThe Dutch architectural firm MVRDV has unveiled a design for the Innovation Park for Artificial Intelligence (Ipai), which will be built in Heilbronn, Germany.
Ipai will cover 265,000 square meters and is designed within a circular footprint. Thanks to that shape, the park will be recognizable even from space.
The complex will be built at the request of the Dieter Schwarz charitable foundation, the city of Heilbronn, and the retail company Schwarz Group. According to MVRDV, the clients want to create a prominent technology hub capable of competing with places like Silicon Valley.
The designers and clients envision the park as multifunctional. It will include buildings for startups and laboratories. The complex will also offer entertainment: exhibition halls, restaurants, and tourist hubs. The developers also plan housing for scientists and a kindergarten for their children. Most structures will be modular and largely rectangular, with an average height of 27 meters.
MVRDV says Ipai could become “an attractive place to work and an interesting destination for visitors.”
The firm believes the park’s unconventional shape will raise its international profile and draw world-class talent. The designers hope a creative, welcoming atmosphere will help. The park’s distinctive round shape — visible in satellite images — will be used as a branding symbol.
What else will be in the AI Innovation Park?
This ambitious mega-project will follow current ecological trends. It will run on solar and wind power and will be carbon neutral.
At the park’s center, the designers plan “iconic forms”: taller, more architecturally striking buildings that will define the complex’s profile.
One of these buildings will be a round visitor hub designed with the Realace studio. It will include event spaces to inform the public about artificial intelligence, Dezeen reported.
A 1.2-kilometer path will circle the complex, with a running track, a skate park, and observation decks.
Project landscape designers will convert nearby pastures into woodlands and gardens that will serve as testing grounds for AI technologies related to biodiversity and agriculture.
MVRDV is an architectural firm founded in Rotterdam in 1993 by Winy Maas, Jacob van Rijs, and Nathalie de Vries. Recent projects include a market in Tainan, Taiwan, that has been called the country’s most beautiful fruit and vegetable market, and a residential complex in Rennes, France with houses resembling lace hills.
