Erfurt_ New life is coming to the Domäne Dornburg – on this Friday, July 4, 2025, Sabine Wosche, Managing Director of LEG, and Prof. Peter Benz, President of the Bauhaus University Weimar, informed themselves about an initial project for the redesign of the historic site directly adjacent to the Dornburg Palaces. LEG has been the owner of the area since 2021, with a diverse, largely fallow building stock that served as a chamber estate until about a hundred years ago and was later used for research purposes, among other things. The current project to revitalize the Domäne is the "Versuchsgut Dornburg" project, in which LEG is cooperating with the Bauhaus University Weimar. Students of the Bauhaus University are dedicating themselves until July 12, when the project concludes, to a usage and conversion concept for the "Großer Kuhstall" building; in recent weeks, they have also been active there in construction and craftsmanship. They were professionally supported by the locally active architecture firm exnovum. Through experimental additions and conversions, a place for learning and encounter is to be created in the Domäne, in order to gradually revive the area.
"We gained an insight today into the work surrounding the cooperation project ‘Versuchsgut Dornburg’," said Sabine Wosche on the occasion of the visit to the estate. "We at LEG are extremely pleased to have found a partner in Bauhaus University Weimar and its highly motivated and creative student partners, who, with commitment and fresh ideas, are working to revitalize this historic, attractively located place ." The students have, in recent weeks at the trial site, which is actually meant to be a place of experimentation and testing, developed and realized many ideas and thereby set impulses for creative new building – focusing on aspects such as sustainability and multifunctionality, mediation between prototype building and traditional craftsmanship, rational approach and intuitive exploration, pragmatic problem solving and even poetic discovery of new paths in architecture and spatial design.
"We are delighted to have the opportunity to develop sustainable design strategies for existing buildings together with the students and our cooperation partners LEG and exnovum, and to test them concretely on a 1:1 scale. The students can thus translate theoretically acquired knowledge into practical experience and actively respond to a real transformation need," says Tim Simon-Meyer, Junior Professor of Constructive Design and Testing at the Faculty of Architecture and Urbanism at the Bauhaus-Universität Weimar.
Specifically, the students focused on the practical implementation of initial conversions and extensions on the ground floor of the building, as well as work on the facade. The existing structure was supplemented with a canopy, new windows were installed using old glass panes, a barrier-free toilet was created, and new water and wastewater pipes were laid. Overall, the balancing act between university teaching and the reality of construction was achieved; strategies for a low-threshold and gradual redesign of existing buildings could be tested using this concrete example. As part of the Summaery 2025 (annual exhibition of the Bauhaus University Weimar), the results will be presented publicly on site on July 12 from 2:00 PM. The project marks a promising start for the development of the entire site and for the continuation of the cooperation in the coming years.
Annual exhibition »summaery« of the Bauhaus University Weimar:
Exhibition Dornburg Experimental Farm – Experiments on Sustainable Tectonics
Thursday, July 10 to Sunday, July 13, 2025
Main building of the Bauhaus University Weimar, Geschwister-Scholl-Str. 8, 99423 Weimar, Room 110
Saturday, July 12, 2025, 2 p.m. to 10 p.m
Domäne Dornburg, Markt 2, 07774 Dornburg, former cow barn
Experimental celebration: Coffee & cake, music and conversations about experimental teaching and collective building in existing structures.
Background:
Until 1921, the Dornburg Domain served as a chamber estate; afterwards, it was both a research site of the Friedrich Schiller University Jena and, during GDR times, a publicly owned estate. The building stock developed from the nucleus, the Old Dornburg Castle, piece by piece along the town wall into the 1920s to meet the growing storage needs of the estate. The row of barns, along with several other residential and farm buildings, is a distinctive and widely visible testament to the former activity of the estate. With the modernization of research operations, work shifted from the middle of the last century to new facilities outside the town. The last permanent residents left the domain around the year 2000. Today, some buildings of the monument ensemble are used as storage by businesses or as a workshop by the municipal building yard, while others stand empty.
Even during the GDR era, the then state-owned estate was one of Dornburg's defining employers. Therefore, many personal life stories are still associated with the domain today. Above all, with the Great Cow Barn, which served as a canteen and a place for parties and other events from the mid-1980s. If its great structural potential can be utilized and it can be filled with life again, it can become a nucleus for the revitalization of the entire area.
After initial revitalization efforts by Friedrich Schiller University Jena in cooperation with IBA Thuringia, the site has been owned by LEG Thüringensince 2021. Since 2023, it has been cooperating with the architecture firm exnovum regarding the development and public relations of the area. With regard to the subproject "Versuchsgut Dornburg", LEG is developing ways for a new use of the Great Cow Barn in cooperation with the Chair of Constructive Design and Testing at Bauhaus University Weimar, which is supported by exnovum.
Further information about the project at: https://t1p.de/domaene_dornburg_presse
Instagram: @leg_thueringen | @kee_buw | @exnovum
