TUM-IAS Headquarters in Garching A home for visionary research with a view

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1 TUM-IAS Headquarters in Garching A home for visionary research with a view Garching Headquarters 139 On a clear day, you can see the Alps from the new TUM-IAS headquarters on the Garching Research Campus, around 20 kilometers north of Munich. Any day, in any kind of weather, you may see the future. Ever since its official opening on October 21, 2010, the building has been bustling with exactly the kinds of activity it was designed to promote. This is a place that sets the stage for exchange of ideas on every scale, from one-on-one to a symposium, and on every level: from the ground floor, which offers a 140-seat auditorium, up to the top floor with its Faculty Club, fireside lounge, and panoramic views. On the middle levels, central meeting areas a mix of formal and informal, private and open are surrounded by ample office space for Fellows, visiting scientists, and staff. Walking the wood-paneled hallways, one is never more than a few steps from a whiteboard or some kind of room for thought such as a library, a reading room, or a so-called Think Tank a one-person cockpit for concentration just this side of sensory deprivation. TUM alumni Rüdiger Leo Fritsch and Aslan Tschaidse were responsible for the architectural design. To build it, the BMW Group provided ten million euros and its own impressive competence not so widely known as its automotive engineering prowess in construction. After completing this complex project on time and within budget, the BMW Group donated the TUM-IAS headquarters to the Technische Universität München.

2 140 BMW Group CEO Norbert Reithofer: This building is a good investment in the future. Here, young scientists and engineers are carrying out fundamental research and working on future topics that concern us all. Industry and research both can profit if they are closely interlinked. Not only has BMW created a building that is a model of ecology, TUM-IAS Director Patrick Dewilde asserts, with its special climatic installations that make the building react intelligently to outside conditions, it also has achieved an artistic masterpiece, making the center of the Garching Campus an aesthetic experience on a par with its scientific mission. Artwork for the building s interior was created by students of Prof. Hermann Pitz at the Akademie der Bildenden Künste München. The jury selected works by the following artists: Wona Cho, Gerald Demetz, Peter Guberina, Stefan Hutton, Agnes Jänsch, Florian Lechner, Tobias Ollert, Kathrin Partelli, and Susanne Wagner. Like most official events at TUM, the opening ceremony began with music. Violinist Hans-Joachim Bungartz also known as Professor Bungartz, Chair of Scientific Computing played an allemanda by J. S. Bach, a solo piece that evokes missing harmonies in the listener s head. What followed was more like a chorus, with explicit harmonies in the messages of the industry, government, and university leaders who spoke. Bavarian Science Minister Wolfgang Heubisch: With the construction of the new TUM Institute for Advanced Study, BMW has set new benchmarks in terms of corporate support for science and research. There is no doubt in my mind that the stateof-the-art new building will lend wings to the work of the TUM-IAS and will reinforce the Institute s presence and image. TUM President Wolfgang Herrmann: BMW has set a laudable example as patron, which testifies to the company s great confidence in the potential of our university. This building radiates entrepreneurial spirit, and intellectual creativity is set to unfold within its walls. A demonstration of that potential capped off the opening celebration. Christina Steinkohl, a TUM-IAS-sponsored doctoral candidate, explained how stochastic modeling of air flows through wind farms could help to optimize their production of electric power.

3 141 And by the next morning, the first major conference hosted here was under way. Energy and Electromobility: Exploring the Fundamental Research Challenges covered topics ranging from big-picture issues such as technical and economic questions raised by the prospect of transforming energy and transportation systems for a low-carbon future to specific cutting-edge research problems in energy conversion, storage, and control. Prof. Martin Greiner of Aarhus University kicked off the program with a talk on Fully Renewable Energy Systems for Europe Among the other featured speakers were industrial R&D leaders from BMW, Daimler, General Motors, E.ON Energie, and Siemens; the energy and transport director of DLR, the German Aerospace Center; and the head of the climate center at Munich RE. TUM physicists, chemists, and engineers outlined energy and electromobility challenges from their research perspectives. A discussion of market considerations focused on a specific case: the TUM initiative to show that an affordable electric car for a large customer base could be manufactured now, by uniting available and novel components in a visionary design.

4 142 Reaching out to the next generation of innovators, an Ideas Market gave selected TUM master s degree students and doctoral candidates a chance to present their own proposed solutions. Symposium participants endorsed what they considered the most promising ideas by giving out symbolic money, which the TUM-IAS would convert into a real investment in the very best proposals. And in a nod to the Institute s openness to creativity and surprise, the program closed with a mock-serious research talk that quickly morphed into a thought-provoking and hilarious magic show. Since that strong start, the new building has hosted a nearly constant stream of activities. Naturally, it s home to TUM-IAS events, but that s just the beginning. For a growing number of TUM faculties, academic-industrial collaborations, and partners such as the Munich School of Engineering, this is a preferred place for exploring ideas and tackling important problems.

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