The Dieter Schwarz Foundation’s education campus in Heilbronn is a design by Stuttgart-based architectural firm Petry + Wittfoht Freie Architekten BDA. The 12,000-square-meter complex houses a private and a state-funded university as well as a training academy.

The multi-story car-park was incorporated into the overall design concept for the campus to offer students, staff and visitors free parking spread across six stories. The building consists of an elongated block with a square structure at one end. In order to create a multi-story edifice that had the feel of an open-air parking lot, a cable-net structure and perforated sheet metal was chosen for the multilayered façade to ensure constant natural ventilation with a steady circulation of fresh air.

The perforated façade was specially designed by RMIG, experts in perforated sheet metal and wire mesh. It wraps itself around the building like a double ribbon, while the patterns created by the perforations (with recesses varying in size and distance from one another) lend the car-park building a unique, unmistakable appearance.

Furthermore, after dark the perforated façade filters the light produced by cars entering and leaving the multi-story structure, so that local residents living in close proximity aren’t disturbed by bright headlamps. During the daytime, the façade intercepts the daylight and thanks to the perforations creates a pattern of filtered light inside the parking lot. The façade thus serves a double function providing dazzle protection both inside and out.