The meeting between the Cluster of Excellence IntCDC and the Institute for Building Construction (IBK) on 7 June showed how versatile timber construction research is 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 Cluster of Excellence IntCDC, 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 the visiting professorship at the IBK, Farid Scharabi works with his office Scharabi Architekten on timber buildings in an urban context. In this meeting, he presented residential and school buildings that meet the typical challenges in cities, such as noise pollution, listed areas and narrow gaps between buildings.
Jens Ludloff, chair of the IBK, develops building projects in his office ludloff + ludloff Architekten 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 project in timber hybrid construction, the timber structure was developed as a plug-in system and realised in birch. Jochen Stahl teaches as a visiting professor at ITKE, which is headed by Jan Knippers and is part of IntCDC. Jan Knippers is also deputy speaker of the IntCDC.
Achim Menges, head of the Institute for Computational Design and Construction (ICD) and spokesperson of the IntCDC, reported on the day about research on multi-storey timber construction at the IntCDC and gave insights into the planning for the new research building Large-Scale Construction Robotics Laboratory (LCRL). The building is 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 financed by the Ministry for Rural Areas with funds from the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) as part of the Baden-Württemberg Holzbau-Offensive.