Over the last two decades, the campus of the Bauhaus University Weimar has expanded primarily towards the south, roughly following the concept of the competition design by the architects AV1 (1996). This term’s design task will deal with the situation north of Henry van de Velde’s main building. Van de Velde’s two buildings are, to this day, the main contributors to the university’s identity. The neighbouring buildings, the student café M 18, the campus office and the workshops, fall short of Van de Velde’s original master plan – this issue remains an unsatisfactory feature to the campus. The project site extends towards the Amalienstraße to the west. Here too, the identity and address of the university campus remains far below its architectural potential.

Therein lies the challenge for a new design: to establish an adequate neighbourhood for the Van de Velde buildings and to establish an adequate architectural response towards the Amalienstraße and the Poseckscher Garden.

It will be necessary to redesign several institutions, such as the campus office, administration building and the workshops belonging to the product design department, all of which are already situated on the site. One of the main concerns will be to design permanent and temporary exhibition space for the university, as well as the “Archiv der Morderne”, an archive that collects everything concerning the university’s architectural history. Currently, this archive is located at the Belvederer Allee 5, suffering from an acute lack of space.

Apart from devising an exceptional architectural solution for the functions mentioned in the programme, the design project should be an adequate response to a historically significant site and it should improve the urban space of the campus.