In north-eastern Vienna a multi-phase urban development process is creating a brand new mixed-use district, and it is here that the Vienna Business Agency is developing the Seestadt Technology Centre. As Austria’s first commercially used energy-plus building, the Technology Centre has been showing how energy efficiency and eco-friendly construction methods can contribute to climate protection efforts since its inception in 2012. The ultimate goal is that when operating at full capacity the building will produce more green electricity than it consumes over the course of a year. Just like Seestadt itself, the Technology Centre is growing step by step into a campus. As well as being home to a number of innovative SMEs, the first phase houses the TU Vienna Industry 4.0 pilot plant as well as the Atos Business Technology & Innovation Center.

A Smart City of short distances

Two further buildings completed in 2020 provide additional space for state-of-the-art urban manufacturing and Industry 4.0 applications. The complex now covers some 17,000m2, with technology-led Viennese enterprises already blazing new trails in automation and production engineering. The Technology Centre is also home to the Co-Location Centre East for Smart Production, run by the European Institute of Technology (EIT) in cooperation with TU Vienna. It is precisely this juxtaposition of housing, education and training institutions and workplaces, all within a short distance of one another, that is a characteristic feature of sustainable urban quarters and local centres. In addition, lifecycle-based planning and  evaluation help ensure high environmental quality standards. In a preliminary assessment, the plans for the Technology Centre already scored 944 out of a possible 1,000 points (according to the federal climate protection programme klima:aktiv and the Total Quality Buildings (TQB) criteria of the Austrian Sustainable Building Council (ÖGNB)), while the finished complex attained an impressive 974 points.

Award-winning building technology

The Centre’s developers follow an environment-friendly approach from planning and construction of the buildings through to operation, demonstrating how the goals of the Smart City Wien Framework Strategy can be realised in practice. The entire shell was fabricated from eco-concrete, for instance, which saved over 1,000 tonnes of CO2 in the first phase of construction alone. Thanks to a highly insulated shell, passive energy standard technical installations (cf. ventilation system with 90% energy recuperation, LED lighting, etc.) and power produced on site from renewable sources (cf. 140KWp photovoltaic system, small heat pumps and buffer tanks), the Centre’s primary energy requirement is very low. Last but not least, Vienna Business Agency makes a point of using building materials with a small ecological footprint. Seestadt Technology Centre was presented with the EU Green Building Integrated Design Award on 1 April 2014.

Contact

Wirtschaftsagentur Wien

E-Mail: schaefer@wirtschaftsagentur.at

Website: Technology Centre Seestadt