International collaboration develops progressive vision for urban production at the BMW Group

Munich. BMW Munich – Urban Production is an international architecture competition organised by the BMW Group in close cooperation with the City of Munich. The aim is to realise outstanding, future-ready production in the urban setting of the company’s home plant in Munich. The competition has now finished successfully, with the two winning architects’ practices – OMA of Rotterdam and 3XN of Copenhagen – opting to jointly develop their designs. Unique and progressive in form, their collaboration will combine the best of their respective winning designs, which will then serve as the basis to develop a masterplan.

As part of its transformation for electromobility and the LEAN. GREEN. and DIGITAL. approach of the BMW iFACTORY, Plant Munich will receive new assembly and logistics halls and a new bodyshop. The planned structural optimisations and their associated production processes will be extremely flexible and efficient, digitalised, and highly sustainable to fully prepare the plant for production of the upcoming Neue Klasse.

“Our decision to choose two winners in this architecture competition has turned out to be spot on. Architecture creates new space for collaboration and offers creative approaches to solutions for meeting the social and industrial challenges of the future. We see the architects’ vision of urban production as being a bit like an architectural ‘Vision Vehicle’: it presents a credible image of what the BMW Group’s home plant in Munich could look like in the future and shows how it can be integrated even more closely and seamlessly into the surrounding area and city. This is our way of taking responsibility for our associates and our immediate environment,” said Ilka Horstmeier, BMW AG Board Member for HR and Labour Relations Director.

“The entire automotive industry is in the middle of a transformation to electromobility, in which digitalisation and circularity also have a key role to play. Over its 100-year history, the BMW Group’s home plant in Munich has undergone numerous changes but none as extensive as this. This vision reaffirms the BMW Group’s strong commitment to such a unique production location in the middle of Munich,” said Milan Nedeljković, BMW AG Board Member for Production. “With the BMW iFACTORY, production at the BMW Group is offering a clear view into the automotive production of the future. Efficiency, sustainability and digitalisation will combine to create a unique manufacturing campus where people, production but also the residential and the industrial will coexist in symbiosis.”

Referring to the vision, Dieter Reiter, Lord Mayor of Munich, said: “The strengths of the two original designs complement each other to produce a convincing vision for the BMW plant in Munich. By integrating the plant campus into its surroundings, the forthcoming masterplan will do justice to its special location in the middle of our city, and neighbours living nearby will benefit. As it advances towards the future of mobility, BMW is developing a climate-neutral plant and reaffirming its strong commitment to the Munich site. I am very pleased indeed, not least because of the many people who will work there.”

Rem Koolhaas, OMA founding partner: It’s a privilege to work on a project that gives us the opportunity to try a genuine relationship between the factory and the city, and to consider how architecture can accommodate the changing role of the worker, how robots and machine can work together.

“We believe that architecture should always aspire to give something back to the city. We see great potential for integrating the BMW Group production campus into the surrounding city, by creating a public park on the northern perimeter, introducing new entrance pockets inviting the public onto the site, and complementing the iconic skyline towards the Petuelring. Our vision fuses the technological advances of the BMW Group car production with a human-centric and sustainable design for the future production campus. It is a green, diverse, transparent, human and, not least, sustainable future for the Munich campus,” said Jesper Bork of 3XN.

In their visionary proposal, OMA and 3XN present a union of production and the urban environment, laying the foundation for the site’s progressive development and for efficient vehicle production at the BMW Group. Public footpaths in the north of the campus will create a suitable transition to the nearby residential areas and successfully embed the future plant into the surrounding cityscape. The entire façade is visualised as transparent and open, offering a view of automotive production of the future.

The architects’ vision of urban production gives the BMW Group’s home plant a new face and makes it a new go-to location. The new main entrance on Lerchenauer Straße could be linked to the Olympic Park by a bridge and, along with the Olympic Centre bus station, it would optimise routing for employees and visitors. The new central building is envisaged as a hub at the heart of the plant, with open-plan work areas that link associates and the production technologies.

In the future, human and logistics flows could be separated and take place on different levels, potentially enhancing efficiency and arranging production processes in line with the idea of the value flow. Redesigned, the various levels could open up natural green spaces that will help regulate the micro-climate inside the plant and also support water retention. Sustainability is not just a key design principle within the holistic approach of the architects but also fundamental to the masterplan. To help future-proof the working and production environment at Plant Munich for the longer term, the architects’ proposal also integrates associate training and development, as a fundamental component.

At the BMW Group’s home plant in Munich, content transformation and architectural development go hand in hand and serve to secure the future of the site and its jobs. By preserving and modernising the existing plant, the BMW Group is once again reaffirming its social responsibility. The envisioned structures integrate social, environmental and economic sustainability in equal measure, with all three aspects being further concretised in the masterplan.

Members of the competition jury

The members of the competition jury were: Dieter Reiter, Lord Mayor of Munich; BMW AG Board Members Ilka Horstmeier and Dr. Milan Nedeljkovic; Prof. Elisabeth Merk (University of Florence), Planning Director of the City of Munich; various renowned architects, landscape architects, transport planners, and further representatives of the Munich City Council and District Committee 11, Milbertshofen/Am Hart.

OMA OFFICE FOR METROPOLITAN ARCHITECTURE
OMA is an international practice in the field of architecture and urban development. Its AMO research and design studio also applies architectural thought to domains beyond architecture.

OMA was founded in 1975 by Rem Koolhaas with Elia and Zoe Zenghelis and Madelon Vriesendorp. Rem Koolhaas is also a professor at Harvard University and the Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing.

Today, OMA is directed by eight partners: Rem Koolhaas, Reinier de Graaf, Ellen van Loon, Shohei Shigematsu, Iyad Alsaka, Chris van Duijn, Jason Long and the managing partner and architect David Gianotten. It has offices in Rotterdam, New York, Hong Kong, Doha and Australia.

Current projects by OMA include the upgrade of the Kaufhaus des Westens (KaDeWe) in Berlin, The Factory in Manchester, the Hangzhou Prism, the CMG Times Center in Shenzhen and the Simone Veil Bridge in Bordeaux.

For the BMW Munich – Urban Production architecture competition, OMA was supported by Vogt Landschaftsarchitekten GmbH of Berlin, Systematica S.r.l. of Milan, Transsolar Energietechnik GmbH of Munich, Ingenieursgesellschaft Prof. Dr. Sieker mbH of Hoppegarten, knippershelbig GmbH of Berlin and Büro Stanek, also of Berlin.

3XN
3XN was founded in 1986 and has over 30 years’ experience in the creation of cultural, office and residential structures that have a positive impact on human behaviour, productivity and social interaction. In 2007 3XN was extended with the addition of its own research and innovation department, GXN Innovation, whose work in the fields of behavioural research, and circular and parametric design directly influences the designs and strategies of 3XN to meet the challenges of the 21^st century. Driven by its Scandinavian approach, 3XN has grown over the years to a company of 180 architects and researchers from 25 different countries, who have local and international experience.

3XN is headquartered in Copenhagen and has offices in Sydney, New York, London and Stockholm. Its global capacity allows it to create architectures which employ global best practices while respecting local cultures and new perspectives.

For the BMW Munich – Urban Production architecture competition, 3XN was supported by the landscape architecture and urban planning company Latz + Partner of Kranzberg, WSP Deutschland of Munich, GXN of Copenhagen and the auditing company Harald Niemöller Prüfgesellschaft, Munich.

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The BMW Group

With its four brands BMW, MINI, Rolls-Royce and BMW Motorrad, the BMW Group is the world’s leading premium manufacturer of automobiles and motorcycles and also provides premium financial and mobility services. The BMW Group production network comprises 31 production and assembly facilities in 15 countries; the company has a global sales network in more than 140 countries.

In 2021, the BMW Group sold over 2.5 million passenger vehicles and more than 194,000 motorcycles worldwide. The profit before tax in the financial year 2021 was € 16.1 billion on revenues amounting to € 111.2 billion. As of 31 December 2021, the BMW Group had a workforce of 118,909 employees.

The success of the BMW Group has always been based on long-term thinking and responsible action. The company set the course for the future at an early stage and consistently makes sustainability and efficient resource management central to its strategic direction, from the supply chain through production to the end of the use phase of all products.

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