A Nice Place to Live

Mountains, valleys, rivers, lakes, forests, meadows – Baden-Württemberg is a lovely place, also thanks to its striking topography. These sweeping and soaring landscapes are shown in great detail by a large-scale model made from the flame retardant polyurethane board RAKU^® TOOL FP-0590.

Two very important anniversaries were celebrated last year in Stuttgart, Baden-Württemberg’s capital: 200 years Cannstatter Volksfest and 100 years Agricultural Festival.

For those readers who do not know these festivals, please check the following explanation:

• The annual Cannstatter Volksfest (“Wasen”) is comparable to the Oktoberfest in Munich. Having said that, we must emphasize that this comparison is meant to only describe the character of the two events, not to put them on
  the same footing (this explanatory note for all those, i. e. Bavarians, for whom this comparison already comes close to sacrilege).
• The Agricultural Festival takes place every four years and features, as the name suggests, agricultural products and services. In contrast to the Oktoberfest, which was celebrated on occasion of the marriage of King Ludwig I, the Agricultural Festival arose from a great famine and thus focused on arable and livestock farming.

For the anniversary edition of the Agricultural Festival, the state government had planned a number of special attractions, including a 1.8 x 2.2 m topography model of Baden-Württemberg. The model had to feature interactive elements, a high level of detail and quality, and be painted in traditional Baden-Württemberg yellow. And, of course, it had to be cost-effective.

Höss Design, a specialist for industrial and customized solutions as well as prototype construction based in Neckartenzlingen, located near RAMPF’s head office in Grafenberg, was ready for this challenge – and so was the RAKU^® TOOL FP-0590 flame retardant polyurethane board developed by RAMPF Tooling Solutions.

Bernd Veil, CEO of Höss Design:

The digital terrain data provided by the state was converted into altitudinal layers and then milled as an area model depicting the different layers. Beforehand, the polyurethane boards were bonded together with a specially matched RAMPF adhesive. To finish, the model was painted. We chose RAKU^® TOOL FP-0590, as flame retardancy was a mandatory requirement and the board exhibits good stability, a fine surface structure, high  dimensional stability, and good paintability

The topography model was one of the highlights at the Agricultural Festival, and even after the fair it was still in pristine condition, despite its numerous interactive elements and the approximately 200,000 visitors.

Clever & Smart Swabians
We would like to take this ar ticle as an oppor tunity to point out – in humble and modest fashion – that Baden-Württemberg is not only famous for its landscape but also its inhabitants.

1) Land of inventors – Baden-Württemberg spends 4.9 percent of GDP on R&D, the highest percentage of all 97 EU regions. The result: famous inventions like the automobile, bicycle, dowel, and teddy bear.

2) One of the leading economic regions in Germany and Europe – World-renowned companies such as Audi, Bosch, Daimler, Porsche, and SAP as well as numerous SMEs ensure that Baden-Württemberg has a high productivity and low
unemployment rate.

3) Famous people: Johannes Kepler (astronomer), Friedrich Schiller (physician, poet, philosopher, historian), Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (philosopher), Christian Friedrich Schonbein (chemist and physicist),Eduard Mörike (poet), Carl Benz
and Gottlieb Wilhelm Daimler (inventors of the automobile), Albert Einstein (physicist), Boris Becker and Steffi Graf (tennis players), Joachim Löw (soccer coach).