Location: Munich, Germany.

Architect: HDR Inc.

The Helmholtz Diabetes Center in Munich is a new building dedicated to diabetes research, located on the Helmholtz Zentrum München campus. The building consists of two rectilinear forms connected by a central spine, with glazed walls and vertical louvers to allow natural light while mitigating solar gain. The south wing contains communication areas and laboratories near a garden courtyard, while the north wing has large, versatile laboratories, offices, meeting rooms, and “thinker cells.” The building is highly adaptable to accommodate new ways of working and evolving medical research. The aim is to bring diabetes research together and network it structurally to accelerate the translation of patient-relevant research results. The number of people with diabetes has nearly quadrupled since 1980, with approximately 422 million worldwide affected by the metabolic disorder. In Germany, just under seven million people were affected in 2016, with up to 500,000 new diagnoses each year. The new building creates an excellent structural, conceptual, and architectural framework for the systematic and translational research approach of the institute. The design takes into account the different wishes and requirements of top researchers, providing the best possible infrastructure for research work and interaction between scientists. The laboratory landscape is designed with maximum flexibility to adapt to innovation cycles and dynamically developing research and organizational units. The building’s energy concept aims to enable flexible and efficient building operations while minimizing the use of resources, with passive sustainability measures such as natural ventilation and insolation. The Helmholtz Diabetes Center improves the campus by offering basic and clinical research through close collaboration within different institutes and universities. The building’s key position creates the possibility for many flexible extensions in the future. The offices and communication landscape along the main spine promote interdisciplinary collaboration and offer space for concentrated work in small groups or alone. The laboratory furniture can be flexibly rearranged at any time, and the building’s sustainability measures optimize the overall system while minimizing resource use.

Photo credit: Hans Georg Esch.