Architect: sehw architektur
Location: Rostock, Germany
Completion Date: September 2022
Berlin-based sehw architektur wanted the material composition of its ground-up Technical Center for the Institute of Electrical Engineering for the University of Rostock to reflect the academic work that takes place inside. The firm has extensive experience designing university science buildings with metal facades; for this research building, the design team elected to use copper in order to stand out.
The center was designed to house the Institute for Applied Microelectronics and Data Processing Technology and the Institute of Communications Engineering. The site is surrounded by academic buildings for scientific research, most of which have red facades—either brick- or panel-clad. While the University’s master plan sets guidelines on the building’s massing, the design team sought a facade material that would both visibly mark the building as an engineering center while still staying consistent with the color palette of surrounding facades. Given this, “the material copper was clear from the start,” sehw managing partner Xaver Egger told AN.
