Navitas

A powerhouse for education

Surrounded by water on the Aarhus harbourfront, the star-shaped building of Navitas provides the ideal environment for establishing cooperation between the business, research, and education communities. Navitas is home to the Aarhus University School of Engineering, the Aarhus School of Marine and Technical Engineering, and the INCUBA Research Park.

The entrance area is made of raw concrete and opens into the architectural focal point of the building: The atrium, where white stairways contrast delicately with the heavy concrete walls and columns. Spatially the atrium is designed to increase a sense of community as well as collaboration between the different areas of expertise encompassed in Navitas. Daylight floods down through the different levels, where 2,000 students, teachers, researchers, and businesspeople spend their working days, freely and organically interacting with each other.

Low-Energy Building

It has been a goal for Navitas to appear as an international beacon for energy savings and the use of energy technologies. The construction is built to be in Energy Class 1. With its prominent location on the harbor in Aarhus, the building simultaneously offers a unique opportunity to demonstrate and highlight the development potential in sustainable state-of-the-art energy technologies, supported by the architecture. Technologies including 1,280 solar panels and sea water-based air-conditioning make Navitas the biggest low-energy building in Denmark, and therefore perfect for its role as an international beacon for energy technologies and energy efficiency.

Client: NAVITAS / Aarhus Municipality
Area: 38 000 m2 / 40 902 ft2
Year: 2014
Location: Aarhus, Denmark
Collaborators: Kjaer & Richter / Niras / Marianne Levinsen Landscape / Contractor E. Pihl & Son / A. Enggaard
Images: Adam Mørk / Lars Ditlev
Users: Aarhus University / School of Engineers Aarhus School of Marine / Technical Engineering INCUBA Science Park