Collaboration for innovation and sustainable construction

Reducing the carbon footprint has been one of the overall goals during construction of A Working Lab. During the project planning and construction process, partnering has been a successful form of collaboration where the Instalco Company, LG Contracting has been responsible for all of the heating & plumbing installations.

A Working Lab is the name of a large (12,000 sq. m.) office building and innovation arena, with more than 400 workplaces at Chalmers University of Technology, Gothenburg. The goal was to create a building where sustainability is part of its DNA. During the construction phase, 16 innovation projects were run and tested at the building in order to create energy-efficient solutions.

For example, the building has been equipped with Phase-Change Memory (PCM) technology that stores cooling energy in salts that can later be used for own cooling (rather than relying on district cooling). Chalmers has been testing the technology in various ways for quite some time and A Working Lab provided an opportunity for testing it on a large scale.

”The PCM solution, which we’ve been responsible for building and installing is just one of many examples of innovation projects implemented here. The goal has been to make this a climate-smart, resource-efficient building with a low carbon footprint,” says Urban Kalin, Project Manager at LG Contracting.

Via a smart selection of materials, it is hoped that the building's climate impact will be 20 percent lower than it would have been if traditional materials had been used. For example, the building’s frame primarily consists of cross-glued wood rather than concrete. And, the concrete that has been used, in parts of the basement, is eco-friendly, made from waste material. The cadmium-free, biodegradable paint has been used on the façade.

This has been a partnering project, where Akademiska Hus (developer), ByggDialog (contractor) and LG  Contracting (one of several subcontractors) have collaborated to design and implement the construction project.

“Partnering is a great way of working, where everyone collaborates with full transparency to successfully implement the project. We were given the opportunity to propose solutions and innovations to the customer. In doing so, the customer really got what they wanted!” says Urban Kalin.

A Working Lab has been awarded Miljöbyggnad certification, Gold Level (a system set up by Sweden Green Building).