With a weather-exposed rammed-earth building and new timber boarding house, the architect makes a statement for consistent ecological construction at Bavaria’s Campus St Michael
Sandra Hofmeister, RIBA Journal, 11.5.2026
Photo: Katharina Kohlroser
The first weather-exposed load-bearing earth building in Germany stands in Traunstein, Upper Bavaria. It serves as a central public forum on the St. Michael campus of the Archdiocese of Munich and Freising. “We wanted to create a sustainability campus,” says Wolfgang Dinglreiter of the client, Erzbischöfliches Studienseminar, which operates the facility. “It was important to us that this should also be reflected in the architecture.”
Photo: Florian Wick
As early as the call for tenders for the building on the 44,000m² site of the educational campus, the client specified earth as the building material. In Anna Heringer, the project found an architect who has realised numerous rammed-earth buildings in countries of the Global South and was now able to apply her expertise in Germany.
Photo: Theresa Buchberger
A statement piece of sustainable architecture
The earth building and the new timber boarding house, which she also designed, complete the Archdiocese’s campus and make a statement for sustainable architecture. The campus is aimed at children, young people, adults and families. Sustainability defined as harmony between nature and humankind forms a central focus of its educational mission.
Photo: Theresa Buchberger
Small nests of gravel are visible on the facades of the earth building. They stabilise the massive walls of untreated rammed earth and protect them from penetrating moisture. Pale bands of trass lime run through the earth layers like fine veins and help prevent erosion. The windows on the west side alternate irregularly between larger and smaller formats and are also framed by light lime bands, which will develop a patina over time.
“I relied entirely on the power of the material,” says Anna Heringer. “That was not so easy, because standards here are treated like laws of nature. But what is actually important – consideration for nature and climate protection – often plays a rather subordinate role.”
Photo: Florian Wick
The low earth building, with one and two floors, is cleverly positioned among its neighbours at the centre of the campus. The projecting and recessed wings of the structure meander between the listed boarding-school building of 1929, a kindergarten and the new timber building of the boys’ boarding house to the south. To the east, a courtyard with a fountain opens up and invites people to linger. Stone steps lead up to the planted roof, where a garden with herbs and an insect hotel has been created — a sunny open space with paths and seating areas. From here, the view takes in the austere white rendered facade of the historic boarding-school building and then extends into the distance, as far as the snow-covered mountain peaks in the border region with Austria.
“What I bring with me from the Global South is the idea of building together,” says Heringer. “Simply putting finished buildings in place is boring.”
Read the full article in RIBA Journal
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