The first director of the Institute for Building Construction and Prefabrication was Prof. Dr.-Ing. Heinrich Paschen (deceased 6/2009). As successor Prof. Dipl.-Ing. Horst Schulze was appointed to the TU Braunschweig in 1981, who gave the institute its current name Institut für Baukonstruktion und Holzbau iBHolz. In addition to his teaching duties in building construction, building physics and timber construction, Prof. Schulze conducted research in the fields of building physics and timber panel construction. His books "House Roofs in Timber Construction" and "Timber Construction, Walls - Roofs - Ceilings" have gained great recognition and distribution in the German-speaking countries. In the year 2000 Prof. Schulze was awarded the prize "Bauenfür die Zukunft 2000" by the Federal Association of German Prefabricated Building.
In 1997 Prof. Dr.-Ing. Martin H. Kessel took over the management of the institute and complemented the teaching with the courses "Masonry Construction" and "Form and Construction". Prof. Kessel's research at the institute focused on load-bearing structures in timber panel construction, spatial load-bearing behaviour of buildings and computer-aided planning and production methods in timber construction. The experimental investigations required for this were carried out at the Laboratory for Wood Technology LHT in Hildesheim, which is a monitoring and certification body recognised by the building authorities.
Prof. Dr.-Ing. Mike Sieder followed the call of the Technical University of Braunschweig and has headed the institute since August 2014. Prior to this, he taught and researched as a substitute and later honorary professor at the Chair of Timber and Building Construction at the TU Munich. Through his person, the existing focal points of iBHolz in teaching and research were continued and extended by contents such as "hybrid constructions", "fatigue behaviour of timber constructions", "solid timber construction", "building with bamboo" and "light weight load-bearing structures".
The basis for the successful realization of research projects and the support of the students of the bachelor and master studies is formed by a team that has been working together for many years and is complemented by dedicated student assistants.
iBHolz cooperates in many projects with other research institutions, such as the Fraunhofer WKI and the MFPA Leipzig. As part of the research focus "Building in Existing Contexts", the cooperation with the Lower Saxony State Office for the Preservation of Historical Monuments in Braunschweig is also continuing.
Current clients also include the Initiative Praxisgerechte Regelwerke im Bauwesen e.V., an association of engineers from construction practice and contractors.
Funding is provided by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft e.V. (DFG) and the research initiative Zukunft Bau.