Sixteen years after the EU-wide general-planner competition was announced, April 2021 saw the completion of the five-part Science Park of the of Johannes Kepler University Linz.
With an area of around 80,000 square metres, the Science Park is one of the largest university buildings in the country this century. It houses a range of uses – above all the young technical and digital degree programmes and the spin-offs emerging from them, but also economics institutions.
Urban design
The newest building, known as building 5, is the head building of the urban composition and, together with the former Starhemberg castle Auhof across the street (now the rector's office), forms a kind of gateway to the city of Linz. With the JKU, the urban development of the flat Linz basin ends here; the green hills of the Mühlviertel begin, and the topography of the new Science Park buildings uses this transition in its spatial development. The orientation of the finger-like buildings lets the katabatic winds that are so important for the city flow through, while creating different open spaces in between.
Topography and connection to the existing campus
All the buildings were designed so that, in plan as well as in section, they respond as closely as possible to their neighbours and surroundings through changes in height and bends. This avoided a rigid building structure and made the immense building masses appear less massive (the individual buildings are up to 140 metres long). By placing large parts of the building mass in the slope, the tall special research halls and the double-height entrance areas are also hidden by the green foothills, and by lowering the terrain they gained a level connection to the existing university site. The resulting “level underpass” beneath the busy Altenbergerstraße – which looks more like a road bridge than a pedestrian underpass – was also part of the commissioned work and was built together with building 1.
The five buildings
The first construction phase, opened in October 2009 – the Mechatronics building, already showed how the landscape flows between, over and through the building, interlocking with the site through its floating office wings, and ultimately merging with the building into a newly interpreted campus.
The generous glazed internal atria connect the floors, let light reach the lower levels and so call for a new, communicative science working climate.
Because of the immense span and the resulting deflections, the structure of building 1 was designed as a bridge. Two massive cores carry a steel suspension structure almost 160 m long. The design of the façade is also subordinate to this structural system. The parapets are not placed at random but are at their largest exactly at the points of greatest deflection. This creates a varied effect outside and more individuality inside – a play reinforced by louvres of different depths and spacings.
The other buildings, all arranged along the Magistrale – the main link between the original university and the new buildings – are more clearly “grounded”; only along this Magistrale do buildings 2 and 3 have generous passages, where the main entrances to each building are located. Between buildings 2 and 3, i.e. at the centre of the new complex, is the café, with seating inside and in the courtyard.
The easternmost building – building 4, the one furthest from the original university – was started shortly before building 5 and completed at the same time. The main entrance of building 4 is at the end of the partly covered Magistrale, which leads into the entrance hall.
Besides classic institute spaces, a research hall on the ground floor and a seminar wing whose lecture hall – thanks to a few acoustic tricks – can also be used as a rehearsal room by the university's wind orchestra, building 4 also has large open-plan areas for multiple uses.
Building 5, arranged in a U-shape around a courtyard designed as a place to spend time, houses a seminar and lecture-hall wing, the Limak – Austrian Business School and institute spaces as well as some JKU administrative units.
Materials, economy and ecology
The industrial-technical character of the Science Park stems from the wish to let all materials show in their pure form. Omitting suspended ceilings and leaving structural elements visible not only greatly minimises the use of public funds but is also a deliberate design statement, and it supports thermal activation of building components. The natural aluminium of the ventilated façades keeps heat gain low, as do the fixed external sun-shading louvres that protect against overheating in summer.
Unclad reinforced-concrete slabs and walls are fitted with thermal component activation, the simplest and most ecologically sound way of heating and cooling buildings. Energy is drawn from groundwater to the greatest extent possible. District heating and central cooling for the whole Science Park cover the rest of the demand. All roofs, including pitched ones, are green roofs, some combined with photovoltaic systems.
