Green light for Technical Chemistry building
Budget committee of the Bavarian state parliament approves construction plans for new buildings
Setting the ball rolling for construction works: Budget committee of the Bavarian state parliament approves construction plans for the new Technical Chemistry building at FAU. The University can now continue with planning a new, modern teaching and research building on the FAU campus (south) in Erlangen to house the Chair of Chemical Reaction Engineering, Chair of Thermal Process Engineering and the Erlangen Catalysis Resource Centre.
‘The new building will not only help advance the prestigious hydrogen research conducted at FAU Erlangen-Nürnberg and create outstanding conditions for excellent and innovative approaches in the field of chemical research. The fact that this major project is a central part of the Hightech Agenda Bavaria also underlines its significance for our Bavarian university landscape and for encouraging innovative science, research and teaching at FAU,’ emphasises science minister Bernd Sibler.
‘We are very happy that our plans have been approved and see this as confirmation of our innovative strength in the important future-oriented field of hydrogen research,’ says FAU President Joachim Hornegger. ‘The new building will enable us to offer excellent conditions for research, teaching and studying.’
The new building will house technical laboratories, a special high pressure laboratory, various specialist laboratories, workshops and offices on around 5,600 square metres of floor space. The building has been designed to meet the specific requirements of Technical Chemistry, as well as boasting new ecological and sustainable construction features: the roofs and parts of the façade will be covered in greenery, and a photovoltaic system will be installed on the flat roof of the main building. In addition, a highly efficient heat recovery system will be incorporated in combination with the existing district heating system.
The high-tech building is to give key research areas of the future the space that they need, as research at the chairs in the Technical Chemistry department have a vital role to play in ensuring the most economically and ecologically viable methods for the production, storage and disposal of chemicals in the future. The Free State of Bavaria and FAU are making a valuable contribution to the ongoing development of Bavaria as a location for cutting-edge science and economic progress.
Further construction projects that have been approved and are in the preparatory stages at FAU include the second construction phase of the new Chemistry building, two new lecture halls built using a timber frame construction method, a new building built to order for education science, the renovation and extension of the Himbeerpalast building and building a new lecture hall complex including an Audimax. Architecture competitions are currently underway for the last two projects, with the winning designs to be selected in December 2021 and March 2022. Science minister Sibler stresses ‘Since 2019, at FAU we have already set construction projects worth an investment of nearly one billion euros into motion. We are making a concentrated effort to push forward the new construction projects at FAU in Erlangen and Nuremberg. Together with the ongoing renovation of the Faculty of Economics and Social Sciences we are improving study conditions in the long term for roughly 20,000 students, or approximately half of the students at FAU.’
Further information
FAU Press Office
Phone: + 49 9131 8520229
presse@fau.de