The FIZ Re­search and In­no­va­tion Cen­tre in Mu­nich is the heart of the world­wide re­search and de­vel­op­ment net­work of the BMW Group. Built in 1986, the area has grown con­sid­er­ably, ex­pand­ing into the sur­round­ing ur­ban space and be­com­ing more com­pact in or­der to pro­vide space for the ap­prox­i­mately 25,000 peo­ple who work there. In 2015, HENN de­vel­oped a mas­ter­plan to of­fer a vi­sion up to the year 2050. More trans­par­ent, bet­ter com­mu­ni­ca­tion, di­rect routes and con­nec­tions to the city quar­ters should cre­ate op­ti­mal con­di­tions for the fu­ture, a cre­ative at­mos­phere which favours the in­no­va­tion and in­ter­dis­ci­pli­nary na­ture of the fields – or­gan­ised along a cen­tral axis.

The sci­ence and tech­nol­ogy com­pany Merck is ex­pand­ing its Darm­stadt site into a global head­quar­ters. The his­toric in­dus­trial site is turn­ing into a “Merck City”: state-of-the-art in­fra­struc­ture, a new In­no­va­tion Cen­ter and new, mod­ern pro­duc­tion and of­fice build­ings cre­ate an in­no­v­a­tive work­ing en­vi­ron­ment for over 10,000 em­ploy­ees. In ad­di­tion, the fam­ily busi­ness cel­e­brated its 350-year an­niver­sary at the cen­tral, re­designed Emanuel-Merck-Platz in May 2018!

In close co­op­er­a­tion (what we call co-cre­at­ing!) with Merck and the ar­chi­tec­ture of­fice HENN, who de­vel­oped a mas­ter plan for the plant and planned the In­no­va­tion Cen­ter, Moni­teurs de­signed an over­ar­ch­ing ori­en­ta­tion con­cept: out­door and in­door sig­nage as strong brand el­e­ments serve as ori­en­ta­tion on the Merck plant.

The new building of the Potsdam-Institut für Klimafolgenforschung is located on the Telegrafenberg in Potsdam, one of the historically and internationally important science locations. The building was designed by architects BHBVT, who designed it to blend harmoniously into the forest. It consists solely of flowing forms, with a circular atrium connecting the three round components. 200 scientists from all over the world have been conducting research here since October 2015. Moniteurs has taken up the color concept of the architecture, the coding of the three components with different bright colors in the signage system and reinforced it with an associative nomenclature. The iconic floor plan extends across all floors and serves as a color marker, which is an essential point of reference for orientation in the symmetrical space.