Federal Minister for Construction Verena Hubertz symbolically presented the funding for the first research projects of the planned German Research Center for Sustainable Building (DFZ-Bau) in Berlin on Friday. The ceremony in the Bundesrat (Federal Council) not only marks the beginning of the concrete work of the future DFZ-Bau, whose institutional establishment is planned for 2026, but also the launch of NextBauBW, the center's state headquarters in Baden-Württemberg. Located at the University of Stuttgart, the office aims to accelerate the transfer of innovations for climate-neutral construction from the laboratory to practical application.
The German Research Centre for Construction (DFZ-Bau) is a joint project of the German federal government, the states of Saxony, Thuringia, and Baden-Württemberg, and partners from research and industry. Its aim is to help address climate change and high resource consumption in the construction sector. Research will be practice-integrated, experimental, and closely aligned with real-world construction scenarios. New methods, materials, technologies, and processes will be tested and evaluated under real-world conditions and further developed in collaboration with industry. Minister-President Cem Özdemir highlighted the state's strong construction research and high-performing construction industry, with its specialized industrial clusters, innovative companies, and a startup scene that is unique in Germany. Baden-Württemberg contributes this strength to the decentralized research network. Together with Thuringia and Saxony, the goal is to strengthen cross-state networking to promote sustainable, faster, and more affordable construction. Minister of Science Petra Olschowski emphasized that the new projects will give construction research a further boost. Good ideas must be quickly put into practice, and that is precisely what the DFZ-Bau is designed to achieve. She wished the researchers speed, because the transformation of the construction industry could not wait.
NextBauBW will pool the state's expertise and is funded by the Ministry of Science, Research and the Arts. Participating institutions include the University of Stuttgart with its Cluster of Excellence IntCDC, the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, the Stuttgart University of Applied Sciences, Biberach University of Applied Sciences, and institutes of the Fraunhofer Building Alliance. The spokesperson is Professor Achim Menges, head of the Institute for Computational Design and Construction at the University of Stuttgart. He stated that NextBauBW is intended to grow continuously and foster closer networking between science, industry, and government. The goal is to accelerate the integration of innovations into construction practice and to expedite the transformation of the construction industry. The Stuttgart office is headed by Dr. Norbert Pralle, who took office in mid-September. The state agency works closely with the German Centre for Computational Research and Development (DFZ-Bau) and the centers in Thuringia and Saxony.
In Baden-Württemberg, around forty research institutions have been working for years on the entire life cycle of buildings: from the planning of resource-efficient building components and more productive manufacturing and construction processes to the valuable reuse of recyclable materials. NextBauBW focuses on digitalization, integrated planning and construction, robotics, circular building, bio-based materials, and timber construction. In this densely populated state, renovation and construction within existing buildings is particularly important. Therefore, two experimental platforms are being established at the University of Stuttgart and the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT). Both work across materials and technologies and will utilize unused existing buildings to develop and test renovation, conversion, and expansion concepts. Professor Dirk Hebel, who will establish the platform at KIT, speaks of a three-way knowledge transfer: researchers, industry, and government agencies work closely together to ensure that findings are quickly translated into practice and that practical experience flows back into research. This not only creates new research instruments, but also visible innovation hubs and contact points for the many stakeholders who shape the Baden-Württemberg region.
