Construction began on the Innovation Park Artificial Intelligence (IPAI) Campus in Heilbronn, Germany, designed by the Dutch architectural firm MVRDV. Developed by the IPAI Konsortium, which includes the State of Baden-Württemberg, the Dieter Schwarz Foundation, Schwarz Gruppe, and the City of Heilbronn, the 30-hectare campus is envisioned as an international hub for over 5,000 professionals advancing innovative and responsible AI solutions. Centered on principles of openness, collaboration, and sustainability, the project aims to integrate workplaces, public spaces, and research facilities, establishing a setting where technology and human interaction coexist.
MVRDV’s master plan is structured around a circular layout intersected by two off-center axes. It envisions a mixed-use environment with laboratories, offices, housing, and a central cultural hub designed to engage the public. The first construction phase will establish the campus core, featuring key buildings such as the communications center, restaurant, mobility hub, start-up and innovation center, living lab, and a ten-story office building. These facilities will define a public plaza positioned at the future heart of the development.
According to MVRDV founding partner Jacob van Rijs, the project aims to strike a balance between the technical nature of AI work and human-centered design. The car-free campus emphasizes greenery, tactile materials, and a comfortable microclimate, achieved through environmental studies. “It’s a design that really emphasizes the ‘human’ part of IPAI’s mission to be the global home of human AI,” he explains.
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Each building within the campus has been tailored to its program. The cylindrical communications center, with its reflective facade, will serve as a venue for exhibitions, conferences, and seminars. Across from it, the restaurant building features recessed orange “grotto facades” forming outdoor terraces. The mobility hub offers a spacious atrium for arrivals and logistics, while the living lab combines office spaces with a large laboratory hall overlooking the central plaza. The bright red start-up and innovation center promotes informal collaboration around a green courtyard, and the ten-story office building integrates photovoltaic panels within its pleated facade, with double-height communal “living rooms” on each floor.
Since winning the design competition in 2023, MVRDV has collaborated closely with the IPAI Konsortium to refine the project, with sustainability as a core principle. Using its CarbonSpace tool, MVRDV tracked and reduced embodied carbon across the design process. Several structures incorporate lightweight, bio-based, or hybrid timber construction systems, including the start-up and innovation center, living lab, and office building. The campus and selected buildings, such as the communications center and office building, are targeting DGNB Platinum certification from the German Sustainable Building Council.
In other recent projects, MVRDV unveiled designs for rock-like tourist facilities in Jialeshui, Taiwan, integrating architecture with the coastal landscape. The firm’s innovation arm, MVRDV NEXT, launched CarbonSpace, an open-access tool that brings carbon accounting into early design stages. In Shanghai, MVRDV completed GATE M West Bund Dream Center, an adaptive reuse project that transforms a former cement factory into a cultural and leisure district.