Innovation Campus DSM

designed by Bryum /

Location / Basel — Switzerland — Type / Campus — Corporate/Company Garden — Parking — Built / 2020 — Show on Google Maps / Published on October 18, 2023

Innovation requires freedom and interaction. DSM’s Innovation Campus in Kaiseraugst offers researchers and employees a versatile open space that promotes collaboration on the one hand and visualizes the corporate commitment to sustainability on the other. Our project brings together design aesthetics, natural qualities, climatic resilience and functional use into a balancing plane of coexistence, creating a lively ground appropriated by all participants.

Together with the existing tower, as the main building in the middle, the canteen in the east, and the new innovation lab in the west, a central open space is oriented towards south as a new welcoming gesture this headquarter. This novel configuration centralizes the open space for everyone’s daily use on the campus, shifts the infrastructural areas towards north and separates vehicular traffic from non-motorized areas. Maximizing the volume of vegetation and minimizing sealed surfaces are a vital step towards mitigating climate change. They also provide new forms of outdoor working spaces and a calm haven during work hours.

Visitors and employees are welcomed into the new campus of the global DSM Group by arriving from the south – via bus, bike or car – and entering through the “meet and greet” area, which consists of a vibrant sea of flowers with sculptural trees and bushes. This floral carpet defines the campus with a clear new identity and, diverging from many other corporate campuses, is a public space without fences. In contrast to the blooming center, the eastern, northern and western parts of the campus, that face the surrounding streets, form an ecological belt with dense woods of native species and expansive meadow landscapes. They offer niches for retreat, strolling paths, sporting grounds as well as essential ecological areas.

The campus gains a fresh start – a distinctive image for the visitors and enhanced functionality with coherent circulation for vehicles and logistics.