The BMW factory in the north of Munich currently appears gray and forbidding: Behind the striking company headquarters, the four-cylinder, there are halls and heavy factory gates with security personnel. What is going on in there is not entirely clear to most Munich residents. Instead, the large factory site blocks local residents from walking.
That could change in the coming years, because there are now future visions for this area that have a completely different approach. Especially in the favored designs, glass and green, transparency and nature join technology and factory production.
Under the motto “BMW Munich – urban production”, the Munich-based automotive group asked six architects to draw up a master plan for how the company’s factory site, which has been growing for almost 100 years, directly behind the four-cylinder can be redesigned into a modern production campus. Actually, a jury with the participation of Mayor Dieter Reiter (SPD), architects and BMW board members wanted to choose a winner last Thursday and Friday.
Two well-known international offices are fighting to win the competition
But according to information from Süddeutsche Zeitung It quickly became clear that two designs are so promising that both should now work out their ideas by May: On the one hand, the OMA office from Rotterdam, which Rem Koolhaas heads. Together with Vogt landscape architects and the Systematica company from Milan, Koolhaas presented a design in which the new factory has almost museum-like entrance gates and an opening to the Olympic Park is created through transparent glass. The second favorite was designed by the 3XN architects from Copenhagen, who designed the basketball sports arena in the Olympic Park and collaborated with the landscape architects Latz. Green roofs and a walkway through the plant from west to east that citizens and BMW fans can walk on are features of this vision.
So far, BMW has been building the 3 and 4 series models at its main plant, as well as combustion engines. But the drive world is changing, instead of limousines with petrol and diesel engines, politicians are calling for the increasing construction of electric vehicles. That’s why the 7,000 workers in Munich are already producing the i4, a sporty, battery-electric limousine in the 3-series format. This is currently a very complicated undertaking that, given the heavy batteries, only works with a few tedious tricks. So that it will run more efficiently and cost-effectively in the future, the i4 will have two completely new halls, suitable for e-cars.
And if the traditional factory is then already electrified, that is the idea at BMW, you could also show that and present yourself in a contemporary way: to the customers, the employees, but also to the citizens of Munich, who are on the other side of the factory wall, which is still unwelcoming at the moment live and don’t know what’s actually going on there. The location in the middle of the city does not make it easy, every conversion is like open-heart surgery. But that’s also exciting: a large industrial heart chamber in the middle of the city. There’s hardly anything else in the world like that. That should be more visible – apparently the jury also thinks so.