A Working Lab - The innovative arena for future creative solutions

Purpose and goal
The goal is to create an innovation arena where different people and groups can meet in creative and innovative ways. The purpose is to work with innovations. The arena is a meeting place for collaboration but at the same time a place where a variety of research projects are displayed. They are developed, tested, built and then evaluated and developed further.

RISE contributes with expertise in energy and resource-efficient buildings, digital infrastructure, the learning environment of the future, sustainable mobility and logistics. RISE also contributes as an innovation partner in the working process as well as a researcher and is part of the process in creating this place for valuable meetings and developing work processes.

A Working Lab is built and owned by Akademiska hus. Parts of the RISE staff will have their offices located in the building.

Challenge
Urbanization and climate change put completely new demands on urban development, especially in our cities. How do you design the city buildings of tomorrow, a place where people like to work and that makes us perform our utmost? What are the possibilities to reach the location in the most environmental-friendly way?

Solution
To develop a model for the intelligent office and learning environment of the future - A Working Lab - simultaneously as the building itself is being built at Johanneberg Science Park, Gothenburg in Sweden.

Some of the projects that are being created within the framework of A Working Lab:

• Learning Lab
  “Learning Lab” is a learning environment where you can experiment and learn together with customers, researchers, business and academics. The purpose is to learn how digital tools, interior design, lighting, sound and other environmental factors can affect learning, creativity and results. In the lab we create spaces of different nature, for different types of concentration and learning.
   
• Outdoor offices
  Within the project, different conditions are created for outdoor workplaces.
   
• Wooden house acoustics
  Find methods for building multi-storey wooden houses that are production-friendly, energy efficient and has a good sound environment.
   
• Wooden house construction without weather tents
  Within the project, new ways to build wooden houses without weather tents in urban environments are explored. Our cities are densifying and the opportunities for work areas around construction projects have decreased. This affects the ability to mount weather tents and other solutions to keep the workplaces moisture proof during construction. During the construction of A Working Lab, new weather protection methods have been tested.
   
• DC housing with solar and battery storage
  By minimizing the energy conversion between direct current (DC) and alternating current (AC), while utilizing battery storage to smooth out production peaks, the project will create new experiences for scalable and more efficient energy use. A Working Lab will be Akademiska Hus's first DC house with solar cells and battery storage. One of the goals is to find advantages for the remaining solar systems of Akademiska Hus, which today generate 2 million kWh of sustainable electricity.
   
• FED
  FED, the Fossil Free Energy District, is an innovative investment in the City of Gothenburg to reduce energy consumption and the dependence on fossil fuels in real estate. A unique, local trading venue for electricity, district heating and district cooling will be developed in the Chalmers area.
   
• IRIS
  IRIS develops and tests new solutions for renewable energy, how it can be stored and managed, as well as sustainable transport.

Effect
With the building as a lab, new sustainable products, services and business models are tested and developed. So far, more than 20 innovation projects have been started in everything from energy-efficient construction to the future's learning environments and digital infrastructure. A step towards a sustainable world with the individual in focus.