Milestone for the new building

Construction permit for the research building has been granted

There is yet little to see on the construction site, but preparations for the start of construction are in full swing. After preliminary groundwork such as the search for any World War II unexploded ordnance and the drilling of the borehole for the planned cold district heating network, a decisive milestone has now been reached: the building authority of the city of Düren has granted the building permit for the new research building. The state of North Rhine-Westphalia and the Cologne district government have also given the go-ahead for the publicly funded construction project. With the granting of the early start of construction, the project has successfully cleared an important milestone. Now the next step can be taken and a general contractor can be sought throughout the EU to implement the construction work.

The research building will be the first new building on the site, which covers more than 100,000 square metres to the south of Düren station. Over the next few years, the Düren Innovation Quarter will be developed here by the business development agency WIN.DN in conjunction with the city of Düren. In addition to the model paper factory, other structural change projects such as the Digital Nonwoven Center of the RWTH Textile Institute ITA and the Innovation Center Düren of WIN.DN GmbH are to be located here.

The new district is intended to be a new urban flagship for structural change in the Rhenish mining area, to support active climate protection in an urban environment and to promote resource-efficient construction. To this end, the development plan incorporates many innovative elements. In addition to a cold local heating network, the construction of photovoltaic systems and infrastructure for sustainable mobility, the aim is to create the largest possible rainwater retention areas and to “green” the roofs of the district in line with the sponge city principle.

The new building incorporates such elements as well as the idea of circular construction. The timber-hybrid construction not only takes into account the specific requirements that research work demands of a technical centre, laboratories and offices. The concept of reusability of the materials used, the building’s technology, the greening of roof and façade and the high residential quality should fulfil one of the highest building standards with the platinum certificate of the German Sustainable Building Council (DGNB).

The research building will thus become a real-life laboratory for the sustainable city. The city of Düren has announced that the first ground-breaking ceremony for the structural and civil engineering work is expected to take place in the second half of the year.