DTU’s innovation hub DTU Skylab doubles in size and creates space for both students and researchers as well as the opportunity to expand its collaborations with companies and international partners.
Last week, DTU Skylab opened the doors to a sparkling new building which more than doubles the size of the innovative workshop. And from early morning, the first 90 students rushed through the revolving door to a course in energy storage and conversion in the new Arena—a hybrid between an auditorium and an event area. The construction was made possible by a DKK 80 million donation from the A.P. Møller Relief Foundation.
“This project has provided us with an amazing setting. We are proud of the beautiful building, which contains everything you dream to include in an innovation environment. There’s an inclusive, ambitious atmosphere and engagement and activity levels are sky high. We look forward to inviting even more students, researchers, and companies to become part of DTU Skylab’s environment,” says Marianne Thellersen, Director for Innovation and Entrepreneurship, Senior Vice President at DTU.
More researchers
DTU Skylab started as an innovation house for students, but in the new, expanded Skylab, it will be possible for researchers to be included in the hub as well. The expansion means that the innovation hub now takes up a total of 5,000 m2, and Marianne Thellersen looks forward to welcoming significantly more collaborators.
“We want more of our researchers’ ideas and innovation projects to become part of the environment at DTU Skylab, where different disciplines, hierarchies, and places of employment cross paths. And to support this collaboration, we have built a new type of multilab in the expanded DTU Skylab that enables work across disciplines and the creation of new innovation processes,” she says.
Openness, courage, ambition
On the opening day, all three floors of the new building buzzed with activity. The architects deliberately worked to incorporate DTU Skylab’s values in the building’s architecture and to carry on the energy from the converted research hall, where DTU Skylab has had its premises since its opening in 2014. Among other things, this is evident in the fact that the new building is organized around a central common room with a view to all floors and functions.
No matter where you are in the building, you must be able to sense the innovation environment and the openness that characterizes DTU Skylab, where it is natural to share with and learn from each other. The large hall in the heart of the building extends upwards to the open view of the sky through skylights and signals inclusivity, courage, and star-reaching ambition.
DTU’s first sustainability-certified building
The new Skylab building is the first DTU building to be certified in accordance with the DGNB Gold sustainability standard. Among other things, the building is designed to consume minimal energy, besides being flexible and easy to convert for new purposes. It boasts a top-notch indoor climate as well as optimal acoustics and natural light and requires a minimum of maintenance. In addition, to the largest extent possible, the materials used were produced with a limited energy consumption and can be disassembled and recycled. The certification is part of DTU’s strategy that all new buildings on campus should be sustainability certified according to the DGNB principles.