BASF Turns Bunker into a 'Creation Centre' to Develop New Products and Concepts

German chemicals giant, BASF, is transforming a former air-raid bunker at its Ludwigshafen site into a ‘Creation Centre’ that will serve as a hub for the company’s customers and partners to combine tried-and-tested competencies to create something new. The centre will bring together BASF’s Performance Materials Division’s global expertise in the development of product solutions in one location.

“For customers, the Creation Centre is a kind of app store that’s equipped with our expertise. It’s not a showroom, but an environment that offers our customers new ways of working and experiencing our competencies in an open-minded and creative space,” explained Mr. Guiscard Glück, Vice President, New Markets and Products.

The Creation Centre is scheduled to open in mid-2019. BASF also plans to implement such centres at other locations in Tokyo (Japan), Shanghai (China), and Wyandotte (USA).

At the heart of the centre’s concept is the meshing of the real material world with the latest digital possibilities, focusing on the customer, the market, and future trends. With designfabrik, there is already a unique facility in which BASF designers can work with customers to develop new products using material samples. It is currently located at the Ludwigshafen site and will be moved to the bunker once the building is complete. The concept also includes BASF’s in-house simulation technology Ultrasim, which is used for the virtual development of real solutions and has been established on the market for many years. By combining comprehensive computer-aided methods combined with state-of-the-art visualisation technologies and 3-D-printed sample components, BASF said it is paving the way for a new dimension in cooperation with customers and partners.

Mixed-reality

Specialists in simulation at BASF have joined forces with the start-up HoloLight to develop an application that will allow simulation results to be displayed three-dimensionally as holographic overlays. Mixed-reality glasses are used to show interactive 3-D projections such as building elements or furniture in the immediate surroundings. This makes it easier to comprehend complex geometries and to identify material properties.