The IntCDC community came together to celebrate a significant milestone: the final Status Seminar of the first funding period. From 14 to 15 November 2025, the Cluster met in Bad Boll to reflect on the accomplishments achieved in the seven years of the first funding period and to prepare for the research ahead in the new period.
The two-day event placed a strong emphasis on research highlights, which were presented across six thematic sessions. Furthermore, the winners of the Best Publication Award 2024, the "Blue Sky" project grant, and all successful doctoral students of the past year were honoured.
Concurrently, the Cluster members held the final General Assembly of the Fundig Period One and the inaugural General Assembly of Funding Period Two funding. 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 PIs and PRs outlined the goals and priorities for the Cluster's second funding period, supported by the DFG.
News and New Early Career Researchers
Achim Menges welcomed the Cluster participants with an image of the first Status Seminar at the Large-Scale Construction Robotics Laboratory (LCRL) in Waiblingen: "This picture shows that we started in an empty space, and we have come definitely a very long way since then. That is why this year’s agenda prioritizes on highlighting the accomplishments of our research projects during the second network period of the first funding phase of IntCDC."
Looking to the near future, he welcomed the new Early Career Researchers who have recently joined the Cluster, inviting all new team members to join the scientific network AdvanceAEC — 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 has recently commissioned contractors for the research integration, leading to progress in the preparation of 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 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
During the two-day seminar, a total of 27 research projects were presented within six sessions, structured according to the IntCDC Co-Design groups of the second network period.
Oliver Sawodny moderated the first session on „Cyber-Physical Construction for Co-Design“, followed by Achim Menges introducing „Digitally Prefabricated and Robotically Assembled Timber Buildings“. Subsequent sessions included „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, and „Artificial Intelligence, Data Integration, and Feedback Control for Co-Design“ moderated by Cristina Tarín.
Across all sessions, researchers shared their successes and challenges, explained their objectives, methods, and processes, and highlighted opportunities for collaboration with other IntCDC research areas, often linked to the planned IntCDC Building in Vaihingen.
Honours and Prizes
At the end of the first day of the Status Seminar, 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 2025 IntCDC "Blue Sky" Project Grant, 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!
Both days were shaped by a wide range of insights, concentrated knowledge transfer, and lively interaction within the IntCDC community.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 inside look into their current work environments.
