Right on the "Magistrale"
Innovative „Infopoint“ fort the city station Ulm

There is the usual hustle and bustle and expectant atmosphere. The ICE from Stuttgart is just arriving on platform 3. The display board rattles and informs passengers on timetable revisions, platform changes and late arrivals. A few meters along a young couple is busily celebrating reunion. An absolutely normal day at the station, one would think. If it were not for that modern and striking building which keeps drawing everyone's attention.

An impressive structure which, by virtue of its distinct language of forms, reminds of mobility, traffic, motion and dynamism. Worlds apart from the conventional appearance of a right-angled building. The construction in question is Ulm main station's new information point, which has just been ceremonially opened by Deutsche Bahn and representatives of the city of Ulm . Until 2019, or to be more exact until the completion of the high-speed ICE railway line linking Ulm and Stuttgart, this temporary exhibition hall will keep the public informed on the progress made via events and guided tours. The newly planned railway line is after all also an important section of the Paris to Budapest connection, the so-called “main thoroughfare for Europe”, and hence represents a railway corridor linking both these capitals along the central east-west axis within Europe . It is exactly this railway connection that the exhibition building also derives its outer form from. An original idea which helped local Ulm architect Adrian Hochstrasser succeed in a competition involving six other architectural firms. „Called for was a multifunctional building featuring a high degree of external impact which would lend itself to guiding visitor groups numbering up to 40 individuals through an exhibition. The brief called for an emblematic architectural language that would also enhance the urban landscape at night“, Hochstrasser comments. Which means that the backlit banner profiles provided by EPS Profiled Solutions could also bring their full strength into play, as the precision bending and cutting techniques allow the realization of virtually any desired shape enveloping a building. The Ulm structure relies on EPS.LUMI profiles in which a high-strength PVC fabric has been tensioned tight and wrinkle-free like an eardrum. The decisive advantages: it reacts elastically, is break-proof and unsusceptible to temperature fluctuations, wind pressure or vandalism, and hence suitable for long-term uses. Architect Adrian Hochstrasser: “The construction of the EPS.LUMI profiles simply convinced us. They were just perfect for our building project and the price-performance ratio was also right. Another benefit: the surfaces are not only tensioned clean and straight, but also permit even illumination, right up to the edges“.

The multifunctional light object, which by the way also features a number of further architectural and technical highlights on an inside floor space of 75 square meters, is therefore destined to perform its symbolic function as a building block of „Europe's main thoroughfare” without difficulties in the coming years.

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