Ball of energy
At times, tricky challenges can spur peak performances – as was the case in the recent conversion of a building at TU Wien. A stone’s throw from the Baroque Karlskirche church, architect Karl Kubsky built an eleven-storey high-rise between 1965 and 1971, which has now been elaborately modernized and converted. Former laboratories were turned into offices, lecture theatres and seminar rooms. A large new IT room has also been created, were fixed power outlets of the EVOline “Dock” series and USB ports have been installed.
The result of the extensive make-over is a world premiere: This is the very first office high-rise to be realized as a “plus energy building”. In actual fact it is even a “plus plus energy building”: Not only does the house generate more energy than is necessary to operatethe building – for example for the heating, cooling and lighting systems. It even generates more energy than is needed for usingthe building. What this means in concrete terms is that the building now also generates the electricity required by each individual computer, printer, and so on used on site. This is made possible through creative ways of generating energy. Not only do solar collectors on the roof produce electricity, through energy recovery the elevators also contribute to total energy produced.
With such great attention paid to the building’s technical features, the benchmark for individual components was equally high. In the high-rise’s new IT room, the power outlets by manufacturer EVOline offer users all of the important ports. These power outlets have been permanently mounted on the table tops and in the version employed by TU Wien each provide offer two plug sockets and a USB charger enabling students to charge their notebooks, tablets and smartphones. This type of installation prevents the dreaded “cable spaghetti” effect and thus ensures operation is low-wear and disrupted as little as possible. However, depending on customer wishes, “Dock” can also be equipped with multi-media modules that receive USB 3.0 type B connectors, VGA connectors, audio connectors or HDMI connectors. In this way, each “Dock” is able to offer exactly what is needed at the work place in question. (fap)
