Museum for pharmazeutical research
2020

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Semster 8
Prof. Felix Schürmann und Prof. Gerhard Bosch
Bachelorthesis

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After an intense examination with the company Boehringer Ingelheim and the perimeter, it was obvious, that this extensive sealed parking area is hardly compatible with the sustainability values propagated by the company on its website. Therefore, the decision was made to develop an urban concept in addition to the planning of the museum. It implements themes of ecological and social sustainability in a forward-looking manner and enables overarching functions, such as linking the Aspach campus of Biberach University of Applied Sciences to the city and linking Boehringer Ingelheim with the surrounding area. In combination with this concept and the building concept, the Museum for Pharmaceutical Research was to emerge as a prelude building block and land mark.
In the next step, the environment was analysed in detail with regard to the demarcation of the company premises, the public transport network, the green areas and the existing road grid. The new quarter is seen as a science village of Boehringer Ingelheim, which is developed by the employees together in joint building ventures.
The most important aspects of the urban concept deal with the topics of noise, mobility, green spaces, public uses, natural cooling and energy supply. On the one hand, a high level of noise pollution from the east is to be expected from Ulmer Strasse, which is to be prevented by larger building blocks with, for example, office use. The traffic noise of the Ernst-Boehringer-Straße in the south is attenuated with the help of topography. The mobility concept relies on walking and cycling within the area and the connection to the public transport network with the help of a new bus stop centrally located on the street axis connecting to Campus Aspach. Parking spaces are also planned along the road. For the museum itself there is an above-ground parking garage with about 90 parking spaces, which is located at the transition from the Obi store in the north to the new quarter. This building is only intended to be temporary and can be dismantled in the future. Two new green axes are created, which run from west to east and are designed as public green spaces that also serve as retention areas. In the north of the museum, in the green zone, there is a path of natural medicine, which links the theme of the exhibition into the outdoor area. In the northern part of the neighbourhood, the green areas are primarily used as gardens for self-sufficiency. The southern part is strongly characterized by the zone with public uses, with the Museum Square at the central point. From here, the materiality of the floor paving also extends into the company premises and thus becomes a linking element. 
All buldings are oriented to allow night time cold air flow from the slopes to the east and west to cool the neighbourhood in the summer. In addition, the warm winds that blow mostly from the south-west are largely prevented by the buildings from penetrating into the inner area. The cooling by evaporation on the green rooftops also contributes to this actions. The thermal discharge of the production plant and cold rooms can be used to heat the dwellings. Solar irradiation can also be used on the large roof areas by photovoltaic systems.
The conception of the building is inspired by the fermentation process of biopharmaceuticals. The associations of the term „process“, such as linearity, rationality, efficiency, specialisation, technology, and aspects of Boehringer Ingelheim, such as the theme of laboratories/sterility, secrecy, the bioreactor and company representation, result in various pitches for the museum concept. According to this, the exhibition should function as one-way dark exhibition rooms, the building should be subject to a basic grid and the additional uses of start-up offices and laboratories, seminar area and museum pedagogy have to be able to function independently. Likewise, the storey structure is to be broken up and the building made vertically perceptible. The aim is to create an enlightened visitor as a „product of the museum“ and to trigger a „fermentation process of knowledge“. This creates an ambivalence of outside and inside, complexity and simplicity, closeness and transparency, and separation of functions and overlapping of functions. By the figurative interpretation of the term „production process“, a twisted stacking of spatial uses develops around a central core. This creates an access zone that winds its way up through the building volume, as well as areas where two spatial bodies overlap and can be combined to form high rooms. 
On the ground floor of the building, the foyer opens completely onto the square in front, whose materiality extends into the volume and accompanies the visitor on his way up. Directly connected to the entrance area is the temporary exhibition and a small café. After purchasing a ticket, visitors can continue up a wide flight of steps with seating steps. The history exhibition of the Boehringer Ingelheim company in the spatial zone of the colonnade along the façade also accompanies him on this path. The seminar area is located on the first floor with a seminar room that can be divided into three parts and an event hall with 120 seats. The floor above houses the first exhibition room and the administration. The spatial volume of the exhibition always extends across two floor levels.
The third floor houses the museum‘s educational facilities for trainees or school classes, with a seminar room, a picnic room, and two laboratories designed with a view into the exhibition. The following floors house two exhibition areas as well as start-up offices with laboratories, which are also in close contact with the exhibition and thus enable visitors to gain insights into pharmaceutical research. Here he can conduct his own experiments in a kind of show laboratory. Having reached the top floor, the history exhibition along the façade ends with a view on the company premises, as well as towards the city centre of Biberach, similar to the style of the promenade architecturale. With the gastronomy, the visitor is also offered the opportunity to linger or he decides to make his way back down and take a seat on the steps to observe what is happening in the public development zone.
The appearance of the building is characterized by the development which pushes outwards and opens up to the surroundings. As a result, each elevation of the museum has an equally representative character. The other part of the façade, behind which the exhibitions and offices are concealed, is kept closed and is only naturally lit by narrow strips of windows. Here the ambivalence of closed curtain-type metal panels and open glazed surfaces becomes clear. The entire building is subject to a basic grid of three meters and is executed in a steel skeleton construction. Only the central access core, the partial basement and the composite ceilings are made of in-situ concrete. The basic principle of the supporting structure consists of twelve metre spanning perforated girders, which form a grid in the corners.
The museum should also address the same sustainability aspects as the neighbourhood itself. Therefore, the construction can be disassembled, just as the outer shell is well insulated with recyclable insulation materials. Even if the aluminium façade is negative from the point of view of the grey energy, it is nevertheless positive from the point of view of durability and demount-ability, if the whole building is conceived as a material storage in the sense of urban mining.
The Museum of Pharmaceutical Research, a concise cube in the centre of the new Boehringer Ingelheim science village, will be able to become a new representative symbol of the company in the public.