A Working Lab is an innovative concept, combining office space and an arena for exchanging ideas, knowledge and experience between academia, business and society, with a strong focus on sustainability.
A Working Lab is both a location and a concept, offering innovative environments for education, work and innovation in the centre of the university campus at Johanneberg Science Park in the Chalmers University area of Gothenburg. A Working Lab’s purpose is to facilitate meetings, provide flexible office and co-working spaces and help students, researchers, the business community and others exchange knowledge and new ideas.
Societal development and learning environment
The building is regarded as a ‘lab environment’ where residents and researchers test and find out about the latest innovations within research and development. This makes A Working Lab a physical link between academia, business and society. Together with the other buildings in Johanneberg Science Park, it creates a strong knowledge environment that helps new businesses and organisations to establish a connection with Chalmers University. The building is both private and public, with the aim of maximising innovative encounters between people with different skills. The entrance hall provides visitors with a vibrant welcome, offering a restaurant, along with meeting and working spaces.
Sustainability in focus
An important part of A Working Lab is its strong focus on creating a sustainable environment characterised by an open, flexible meeting place for everyone. A major goal was also to create a building with a very low CO2 footprint, for instance by using only renewable energy and cutting energy consumption to less than 35 kWh/sqm a year, excluding residential consumption.
The Working Lab building has a timber frame and its facade is painted with cadmium-free compostable paint. Another goal was to achieve the gold level of Miljöbyggnad, a certification system governed by Sweden Green Building Council (SGBC) to encourage and recognise environmentally sustainable buildings.
Unique energy solutions and material choices
A total of 16 innovation projects have used the building as a test bed. Several of the projects have contributed to making the building a cutting-edge example for sustainability. The property is equipped with resource-efficient solutions such as PCM technology for thermal energy storage, DC technology with battery storage and solar cells, which have already supplied electricity for construction work and in the future will generate 150,000 kWh of renewable electricity per year.
Facts and figures
• Space for up to 430 workstations in flexible areas that can be adjusted according to changing needs.
• Total area: 11,700 sqm.
• Access to at least 16 conference and meeting rooms in the building.
• Parking space in a neighbouring new car park.
• Reception with conference, meeting and exhibition areas.
• Public-transport stop for ElectriCity, an innovation project testing electrified public transport.
Organisations involved in the project
The office building and innovation arena was completed in 2019 and was launched by Akademiska Hus together with Tengbom Architects, and Byggdialog, a partnering entrepreneur. Akademiska Hus is a real-estate company specialising in building and developing environments for education, research and innovation. Its concept for co-working, makerspace, short contracts, learning labs and other flexible meeting places is being launched nationally.
