This building looks like an inhabited painting. It consists of a simple volume with a glass skin, onto which a polychromatic pattern has been printed. This treatment gives the building its own scale and a surprising sculptural quality, as well as a striking and lively contemporary image that sets the institute apart from its peers. The pattern was generated from a monumental enlargement of a microscopic image of one of the drugs produced by this pharmacological company. It thus becomes symbolic of the nano-world of biological research into which one seems to plunge upon entering the building. As an architectural element, the patterned skin unites the building’s diverse parts into a unified whole; on a pragmatic level it works as a layer of adjustable sun shades.

This project is part of the research campus of Boehringer Ingelheim Pharma KG, located in Biberach, southern Germany. The new building accommodates mainly laboratories and offices. A long seven-storey structure exploits a predetermined building envelope to the full, facilitating a direct connection to an existing adjacent building. Its spacious ground floor foyer serves as a unifying element, focusing various routes that traverse the surrounding campus.