Corvinus Gellert Campus, Budapest, Hungary
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ProjectCorvinus Gellert Campus
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LocationBudapest, Hungary
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From Administrative Building to Campus
campus park
At the foot of Gellért Hill, on Ménesi út in Budapest's 11th district, Corvinus University has moved into its new Gellért Campus. Rather than building on a greenfield site, the project reused the 1978 building of the former College of Public Administration (Államigazgatási Főiskola). Instead of demolishing it, the client and architects opted for adaptive reuse: the mass and structure of the existing building were retained, while it received an entirely new, white grid façade and a new glazed entrance on the side facing the city.
Two clearly legible volumes emerged from the existing structure: tower „J“ – for Jövő, meaning future – with cooperative teaching and learning spaces, and tower „K“ – for Közösség, meaning community – which houses the student dormitory in air-conditioned twin and triple rooms. The programme is complemented by a large lecture hall, a quiet reading room, the data-science-oriented „Adattér“, and a sports and fitness centre with a climbing wall and several movement studios. The buildings are surrounded by a spacious campus park of more than 11,000 m².
Sustainability With Substance
Gellért Campus is considered Hungary's most sustainable educational building: it is LEED Gold certified and has been proposed for an AA+ energy efficiency rating. This is made possible by a combination of photovoltaics and 86 geothermal boreholes with heat pumps, complemented by automated shading, motion-sensor lighting and green roofs.
Since its completion, the project has received several awards, including the Budapest Architecture Award, a special prize for „Green Building of the Year“ from the Hungarian association of construction entrepreneurs (ÉVOSZ), and the 2025 Hungarian Real Estate Development Award in the university/technology centre category. The campus was also presented as a best-practice example for sustainable building renovation at a conference held by Deutsche Umwelthilfe in Berlin.
Accents at the Entrance Stairway
Two RECKLI formliners were used for the exposed-concrete stairway at the campus's new, city-facing entrance: the fine, shimmering 1/41 B Ibiza pattern across approximately 60 m², and the coarser-grained 2/106 B Amur pattern across approximately 30 m².
In total, around 250 m² of cast-in-place concrete was textured this way, executed on site by general contractor Market Építő Zrt. At this central point of arrival, where students and visitors reach the new entrance, the two formliners give the exposed concrete a calm yet lively surface texture, creating a deliberate design accent at the transition between the existing building and the new addition.
