Akademiska Hus makes multimillion investment in Umeå
Monday, 20 December 2021
Akademiska Hus is investing SEK 272 million in a new building on the Umeå Campus. The building, which is currently called Building K, will meet the needs of Umeå University for premises for teaching, examinations and offices. With its strategic and central location in the middle of the campus, Building K will be the future hub of the campus.
Building K will be linked to Universum, Aula Nordica and Naturvetarhuset and will strengthen the physical identity of the Umeå Campus. The 8,000 square-metre building will have five floors and include classrooms, offices, study areas and a café. Building K will also have examination halls with room for up to 540 people, which means that for the first time, Umeå University will be able to gather all of its premises for examinations on the main campus.
“An important issue in the construction project involves the option to use the premises for other purposes during those periods when there is little need for examination halls. We want to increase utilisation of the premises and thereby reduce our climate impact,” says Richard Olsson, property manager at Umeå University.
Flexible facilities for increased use of premises
In order to use the premises in Building K as efficiently as possible, they will be flexible so that they can easily be converted for various activities. For example, the examination halls will be able to be converted into classrooms when the need increases, while the classrooms will be able to be used as examination halls during intensive examination periods. Through this high degree of generality and user flexibility, a sustainable building will be created that is future-proof for some time to come.
“Umeå University and Akademiska Hus have ambitious sustainability goals. With an array of initiatives, including assessment of all system choices from a climate perspective and equipping the building with solar panels, we ensure that Building K will be a climate-smart building with a small CO2 footprint,” says Peter Bohman, Market Area Director at Akademiska Hus.
Yet another sustainability aspect that contributes to a smaller climate footprint is that Building K was initially intended to be a larger building than what is now being built. By collecting data and analysing how the centre of education’s current premises can be used more efficiently, Akademiska Hus and Umeå University have been able to greatly reduce the original need for new construction.
The construction start for Building K is planned for August 2022 and the building is expected to be completed in the spring of 2024.