4 yards, 4 lounge types, 4 carpet themes University of Stuttgart-Vaihingen, Institute for Computer Science

The theme 'living room' was taken up in the 4 courtyards as a counter-image to the highly technical working world. Four different meeting points and at the same time quiet zones have been created, which allow relaxation and regeneration with elements of nature.
Appreciation at the German Landscape Architecture Award 2005

The new building for the Institute of Computer Science is part of an overall structure of institute buildings, refectory and library and a sophisticated outdoor facility from the 70s, and is thus, since 2003, a building block of a so-called "learning street" - the center of university life.
The computer science building shows an increasing transparency and openness of the rooms from the outside to the inside. The boundaries between inside and outside are minimized by a particularly light construction of the supporting structure and by supplying all rooms and lecture halls with daylight. The use of transparent, translucent and reflective materials create a spatial perception between illusion and reality.
The desire was to incorporate the inner courtyards into this system of complex visual relationships in order to increase the transparency of the building. And also to create outdoor areas detached from the campus, which simultaneously serve as break, work and viewing space. A motif was required that runs through all four courtyards and yet makes them distinguishable.
Integrated into the operation of the institute and teaching activities and spreading over two floors, the theme of 'living room' was taken up in the four courtyards as a counter-image to the highly technical working world:
On the upper floors, the carpet types 'Berber', 'Persian', 'Sisal' and 'Floccati' were installed as walk-on platforms. Their 'type-appropriate' furnishing and the play with the proportions of carpet, chairs, lamps, potted plants and people create a slightly bizarre atmosphere. In particular, the oversized, bright yellow flower pots in the lower ground floor courtyards, visible from the lecture halls, corridors and campus, seem as if from another world.
Irritated in scale, one slips away from academic reality for a moment.

AppreciationGerman Landscape Architecture Award 2005

Jury verdict: The authors convince with a clear, consistently implemented and thoroughly surprising concept. They have chosen the motif of stylized carpets for the design of four courtyards of a university building, which they have designed with appropriate - not exaggerated - effort.

The result is four different meeting places and at the same time quiet zones that allow relaxation and regeneration with elements of nature. The enigmatic wit in the treatment of the chosen theme of living rooms seems all the more appropriate when you consider the young age and needs of the users. In this case, it is a matter of computer science students, i.e. a target group that already spends a lot of time in front of the computer due to their job - they are offered four discrete counter worlds.

The project shows and proves that novel, almost exemplary solutions can be realized with comparatively modest means.