New building in the Olympic Park for the Technical University of Munich
Boost for the sports and health sciences
Despite considerable individual achievements, the sports education at the TUM that followed the Olympic Games has led a shadowy existence. Since the structural reform in 2002, however, it has been consistently modernised and is currently being combined with nutritional sciences and medicine in the Faculty of Sports and Health Sciences. "Exercise and nutrition are the most important, complementary preventive factors for maintaining health," said the president at the groundbreaking ceremony. "Their scientific foundation and penetration are the tasks of a university that has the associated anchor faculties like no other university in Germany.
He cited as examples the nutritional medicine successfully represented at the TUM and the more recent appointments for neuromuscular diagnostics, sports biology, sports and health management, sports and health didactics/education as well as epidemiology. Further new appointments are underway at the interface between sport and health, the natural and engineering sciences and medicine. Sharpening the scientific profile is high on the agenda, the president said. The excellence of the TUM as well as the generous new construction investment of the Free State of Bavaria are committed to this. In the medium term, the ratio between students and professors must now be drastically improved from 200 to 1. A new development and structural concept should contribute to this.
"With the new building for the TUM Campus in the Olympic Park, we are continuing to build on TUM's excellence," said Prof. Marion Kiechle, Minister of State for Science and Art. "We create optimal conditions for the sports and health sciences. In view of the current and future challenges facing the faculty in research and teaching with regard to social megatopics such as health, prevention and physical activity, this is an important and right step.".
Europe's largest sports campus
"With this new building we have the best opportunities to further advance our scientific research and to live our interdisciplinary orientation," said Prof. Ansgar Schwirtz, Dean of Sports and Health Sciences - "and it is also important that we open up future-oriented professional fields for our students through training.
A building complex with six inner courtyards is being built on the former Olympic site. The buildings are mainly constructed of wood and glass and take up again the idea of an "Olympic landscape". Completion is planned for the 50th anniversary of the Olympic site in 2022. "The new sports centre in the Olympic Park will be a record-breaking timber construction in its dimensions", said Helmut Dietrich, managing partner of the architectural office Dietrich Untertrifaller - "with all qualities such as lightness, sustainability and energy efficiency. A construction method and architecture as a logical answer to the sporting task and the special location in the listed park".
The former buildings were dilapidated and could no longer be renovated. The new building is the result of an international architectural competition: 27 architectural offices submitted their designs to an expert jury. The winner was the team of Dietrich Untertrifaller Architekten from Austria.
Sports facility for over 120,000 Munich students
In addition to scientific research and training, the TUM sports campus offers more than 120,000 students the opportunity to participate in popular and competitive sports. With around 16,000 active participants in over 600 individual events per semester and in around one hundred different sports, it is the largest university sports facility in Germany.