Laying of the foundation stone for the Fraunhofer Institute for the IPM Physical Metrology in Freiburg

With the ceremonial burial of a "time capsule", the official start of the construction of the new Fraunhofer IPM Institute was marked on 4 July, 2017, on the grounds of the old airport. With the total investment of around EUR 60 million, KREBS+KIEFER are responsible for structural engineering and building physics for the labs and institute buildings.

The Fraunhofer IPM helps industrial companies to reduce energy and resource use in their production processes and to increase product quality and reliability. The new building is part of the comprehensive site development concept "Sustainable Energy Valley" in cooperation with the University of Freiburg.

Katrin Schuetz, State Secretary at the Ministry of Economy, Employment and Housing, emphasised the importance of the new building for the state of Baden-Wuerttemberg, which is involved in the funding of the project. The construction project very close to the planned football stadium in Freiburg, proved quite demanding, "giving rise to vociferous complaints due to the size of the excavation pit, since the stadium construction had already begun", joked Freiburg mayor Prof. Dr. Martin Haag.

Following the speeches, moderated by the Institute Director Prof. Dr. Karsten Buse, the time documents, encased in a steel capsule, were lowered into the ground as a symbolic “foundation stone”.

KREBS+KIEFER are providing a complete load-bearing design for the building project from its offices in Karlsruhe and Freiburg. The Dresden branch have also been entrusted with the complete package for building physics.

Based on the long-standing, confident cooperation with the Fraunhofer Society in Munich, KREBS+KIEFER can always be trusted with their building projects. In addition to the IPM in Freiburg, IZB Birlinghoven and KIT Karlsruhe are currently supporting other projects by KREBS+KIEFER.