| Time: | November 13 – 14, 2025 |
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The IntCDC community gathered in Bad Boll from 13–14 November 2025 for the final Status Seminar of the first funding period. The two-day event reflected on the accomplishments of the past seven years and looked ahead to the next phase of research. Highlights included six sessions presenting key research achievements, the recognition of award recipients and new doctoral graduates, and the final and inaugural General Assemblies of Funding Periods One and Two, during which Achim Menges was re-elected as Spokesperson. The seminar concluded with Project Coordination Workshop 2, setting the goals and priorities for the Cluster’s second DFG-funded period.
News and New Early Career Researchers
Achim Menges welcomed the Cluster participants to this significant milestone of the final Status Seminar with an image of the very first Status Seminar at the Large-Scale Construction Robotics Laboratory (LCRL) in Waiblingen: "We have come a long way since the Cluster of Excellence IntCDC started in 2019. This is why the focus of this year's agenda is on showcasing the achievements of our research projects during IntCDC's initial funding phase."
Looking ahead, he welcomed the new Early Career Researchers who have recently joined the Cluster, encouraging them to engage with AdvanceAEC – a scientific network initiated by IntCDC, which has grown to become a global community of over 1,100 members, including major DFG-funded research centres in Germany and several international partners.
Menges also provided an update on the IntCDC Building in Vaihingen, where construction has started in the second quarter of this year. The university recently commissioned contractors to carry out the research integration, which has led to progress in preparing the functionally graded concrete foundations and slabs.
Finally, he announced the research highlights sessions, which were structured according to the IntCDC Co-Design groups of the second network period.
Jan Knippers, Deputy Spokesperson of the Cluster, then guided the audience through a series of inspiring two-minute "rapid fire" presentations by the 22 researchers who joined the IntCDC team over the past year. Representing disciplines from architecture and engineering to computer science and data management, these new team members bring diverse expertise and perspectives, further enriching the interdisciplinary IntCDC community.
Research Highlights of Co-Design Groups
The two-day event placed a strong emphasis on research highlights. A total of 27 research projects were presented within six sessions, structured according to the IntCDC Co-Design groups of the second network period.
Cyber-Physical Construction for Co-Design — moderated by Oliver Sawodny
Digitally Prefabricated and Robotically Assembled Timber Buildings — moderated by Achim Menges
Co-Design and Quality Modelling — moderated by Volker Schwieger
Digitally Fabricated Fibre Composite Building Systems — moderated by Jan Knippers
Digitally Prefabricated Concrete Building Systems — moderated by Lucio Blandini
Artificial Intelligence, Data Integration, and Feedback Control for Co-Design — moderated by Cristina Tarín
Across all sessions, researchers shared their successes and challenges, presented their objectives, methods, and processes, and highlighted collaboration opportunities within IntCDC research areas – often linked to the planned IntCDC Building in Vaihingen.
Honours, Prizes and Career Talk
At the end of the first day, the authors of the Best Publication Award 2025, which is endowed with €1,500, were honoured.
The award was received by lead author Ekin Sila Sahin and co-authors of the paper "Weather-responsive adaptive shading through biobased and bioinspired hygromorphic 4D-printing".
Xiliu Yang along with her co-authors was honoured for her publication entitled "An Implementation and Evaluation of Large-scale Multi-user Human-robot Collaboration with Head-mounted Augmented Reality".
Marius Klamt has been awarded with the IntCDC "Blue Sky" Project Grant 2025, which is endowed with €10,000 for the project "CellRod – Bio-Based Reinforcement".
The ceremony concluded with the celebration of the 12 successful doctoral graduates, who were honoured with the black IntCDC beanies, which are reserved exclusively for doctoral graduates.
Many Congratulations to all award recipients and graduates!
The Career Talk Panel “Transitioning out of Academia” offered perspectives on career paths after completing a PhD. Four recent doctoral graduates shared how they selected their professional trajectories and provided an insights into their current roles.
General Assembly and Project Coordination Workshop
Alongside the seminar, the Cluster members held the final General Assembly of Funding Period One and the inaugural General Assembly of Funding Period Two. During the latter, Achim Menges was re-elected as Spokesperson of the Cluster of Excellence Integrative Computational Design and Construction for Transformative Architecture (IntCDC). The Status Seminar concluded with the Project Coordination Workshop 2, where the new Cluster Principal Investigators and Participating Researchers outlined the goals and priorities for the Cluster's second funding period, supported by the DFG.
Both days were shaped by rich insights, focused knowledge transfer, and lively interaction within the IntCDC community – an ideal moment to reflect on seven years of achievements and to prepare for the research ahead in the new funding period.
