AAU Innovate

AAU Innovate is an extension to Aalborg University (AAU), providing a vibrant setting for research, knowledge sharing and science, as well as social communities. AAU Innovate is an open and inviting building, providing an innovative basis for informal learning that acts as a supplement to the formal education and research offered at AAU. Designed to promote idea generation and innovation, the users are able to inhabit un-programmed workshop spaces here — named Garages – referring to the architectural frame for some of the world’s most successful entrepreneurs. In these garages, the users define their own rules and methods of co-working creating space for new ideas to flourish.

The garage is a well-known architectural frame for many of the world’s most successful entrepreneurs. Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak built their first Apple computer in a garage, as was the case for Bang & Olufsen, Hewlett Packard, Amazon, Google and Microsoft. To foster the same kind of entrepreneurship, and to invite users to ‘think outside the box’, AAU Innovate consists of several un-programmed Garages. The Garages are focused on intense idea-generation and spaces where the users can invent their own rules for collaboration.

In a vertically organized building, you miss many potential meetings from the moment you arrive, to when you reach your desk. Therefore, AAU Innovate is designed as a horizontal, terraced volume – a frame for the creative process – where collaboration and meetings among users occur naturally as part of the building’s daily flow.

The main atrium is the pulse of the building, connecting the common functions with the individual workspaces throughout all floors. As you move through the building, new synergies are revealed, allowing users to change surroundings and focus.

The atrium is a multifunctional space with areas for stand-up meetings, coffee breaks, temporary installations, exhibitions, and 1:1 mock-up’s, used for interdisciplinary research and innovation. To create a frame that fosters collaboration and innovation, the building not only provides spaces for discussion and research, but also areas for quiet and focused individual work. Functions become more separated and private as you move vertically through the building.