Lab Building West – a new building for experimental and theoretical science

Lab Building West is the fifth and biggest newly erected building on the campus of the Institute of Science and Technology Austria (IST Austria) in Klosterneuburg. The building is officially opened on December 1, 2015. Lab Building West is located on the western part of the campus. On this side, it completes the ring of buildings surrounding the campus pond and green areas in the campus center. Lab Building West has 10’000 sqm floor area spread over six floors. It is adapted for experimental research in the physical sciences as well as theoretical research by up to 300 people in 30 research groups.

The perspective widens
Lab Building West widens the scope of research carried out at IST Austria. A newly established Scientific Service Unit, a nano science facility located on two floors of Lab Building West, planned to be in operation in late 2016, will make this scientific expansion possible. In this cleanroom, novel materials and devices can be fabricated and studied free from contaminants. Using such materials and devices, researchers at IST Austria will be able, for example, to investigate completely new ways of information processing in computers. For the first time, solid state physicists and material researchers will be able to carry out experiments at IST Austria. The highly flexible structure of Lab Building West will provide state of the art research infrastructure operated by highly specialized experts. In Lab Building West, up to 300 researchers in the theoretical and experimental sciences will work on 10’000 sqm floor area. In total, the building provides space for up to 20 theoretical research groups and 10 experimental research groups.

The building
Lab Building West was designed by the architect office Baumschlager Eberle and is opened after just 30 months of construction. The State of Lower Austria provided the funds to invest 57.15 million EUR in this new institute building. It is composed of two blocks of six floors each, including the basement and a setback floor for building services on the roof. The southern office block is connected with the northern lab block through a bridge which serves as a communication area – a concept that has already proven effective in the connection between the Central Building and the Bertalanffy Foundation Building. Lab Building West will be heated and cooled through thermal concrete core activation. Photovoltaic elements on the rooftop produce energy for the building.

Further construction measures
Further buildings currently under construction will fill the gaps left in the ring of buildings surrounding the central campus pond. A campus cafeteria on the hill to the north of Lab Building West will cater to the growing number of employees at IST Austria and is expected to open in 2016 before summer. A second administration building will be built adjacent to the voestalpine administration building on the eastern part of the campus alongside the B14 Bundesstraße.