Awarded Silver: The GeoBioLab
In order to be in a position to work economically, especially small and highly equipped laboratories should be connected to the technology infrastructure of already existing laboratory buildings. Technology must be bundled so that synergies can be exploited. At the "Albert Einstein" Science Park, this requirement turns out to be one of the greatest sustainability challenges.
With the GeoBioLab, starting operation in June 2021, the GFZ avails of a new building that meets the highest innovative demands in a variety of ways. With the construction of this laboratory building, the GFZ is committing itself to sustainability in its complexity of ecological, economic, functional and socio-cultural dimensions. This building is being awarded the "Silver" certificate on the basis of the criteria catalog (BNB_L) of the "Sustainable Building Assessment System" specially designed for laboratory buildings, which the Federal Ministry of the Interior, for Building and the Home has conceived and established for all research buildings with a larger proportion of laboratory use.
With the GeoBioLab, all sustainability criteria have been taken into account to the same extent. With the completion of the building A71 – GeoBioLab next to the building complex B-G on the grounds of the Science Park, the additional needs of the laboratory-based sections are met. The building also integrates a server room to consolidate the computing and storage capacity of the entire GFZ and accommodate the expected growth for the next ten years. The building's multidimensionality is one of its greatest achievements. This is because the combination of server room and highly equipped laboratories is expected to bring considerable technical and economic advantages. For example, the enormous waste heat from the computers can be fed into a local heatingnetwork with the B-G building complex and be used to heat primarily the laboratory supply air as well as offices. The GeoBioLab itself does not have a heating system, rather its heating requirements are entirely covered with waste heat.
In future, new buildings as well as major structural changes are subject to the same requirement: the consideration of all criteria with respect to sustainability and to fully comply with our function as a future-oriented research institution.
