Creative responsibility

Good landscape architecture for the team at BEM means transporting a sense of the unique. To them, each place is extraordinary in itself and it is a matter of looking at it closely to both understand its history and weave something new into it. Thus conserved and reformed, the space will shine in a new and unique way.

Founded in 1990 by Irene Burkhardt in Munich, the office has been co-led by Oliver Engelmayer since 2015, while Martin Mendel joined the duo in 2018.

The trio plans, forms and creates largescale open areas that are often connected with history, as Oliver Engelmayer explains. Thus, most of their projects are in the public eye from the planning stage through to realisation.

Ingolstadt university campus

As part of the old foundry area redevelopment, a green, landscape-orientated campus was created, which included the existing tree population. Generous, sloping lawns offer much space for open-air recreation and reveal architectural findings. A mixture of beautiful greenery and pebble beds invite for outdoor learning and resting in the courtyards.

Isar riverbank

The BEM office has created a new quality of life for both the powerful river and its connected habitat as part of an 11-year restoration plan. It is now more accessible again by way of dynamic, flat pebble banks, allowing the river outline to adapt to the seasonal cycle and to support the typical habitat. The history of the Isar, as a wild river from the Alpine region, becomes visible once again.