This building is one of many imaginative projects initiated by the Emscher Park Internationale Bauaussellung (IBA), a ten-year programme of environmental improvements set up in 1989 by the Lander government of North-Rhine Wesphalia. It forms the axis of the Rheinelbe Science Park, a centre for technological innovation established on the site of a redundant steelworks. The land has been decontaminated and landscaped with a lake, which also serves as a rainwater reservoir.