For the Department of Anatomy at the Medical University of Graz, the existing U-shaped building was renovated, converted and supplemented with a teaching building.
A new building – consisting of large underground lecture hall (with a hard-won skylight) and a compact teaching and research building – was added on the west side. The existing building is a listed building and was thermally upgraded as far as possible. The original structural concept of the building was retained and only had to be broken up where it was necessary for the development of the new building and the lecture hall; here, the execution was carried out by means of local underpinning and compensation measures based on a 3D simulation.
This part of the building has three basement levels, with basement level 1 only partially below ground level. The impressive excavation pit support with a depth of over 12m in the courtyard of the existing building not only had to contain the foundation loads of this building itself, but also form the excavation pit for the adjacent lecture hall. The anchored bored pile walls of the adjacent supply center were decisive for the floor plan design of the basement floors of the new building, as the reaction to the obliquely sunk anchors had to be with stepped basement floors in order to ensure the stability of the bored pile wall.
Adjacent to the lecture hall is the 5-storey new building with delivery and storage of the cadavers, dissection rooms, seminar rooms and study areas. It is not surprising that the building services takes up an entire storey in the complex building structure, as an exhaust air system was installed above each of the 70 existing dissection tables, which was part of a separate research project. Parts of the teaching building are supported by a multi-storey, highly reinforced concrete slab to ensure access to the lecture hall.
The acoustic decoupling and insulation of the individual rooms as well as the acoustic design of the existing and, above all, the new lecture halls, supported by an iterative simulation calculation, were decisive for the building physics work.
We would like to thank our long-standing partners Franz un Sue ZT GmbH for the successful collaboration, BIG for their trust in our expertise and congratulate MedUni Graz Anatomy on the new chair.
Especially in complex construction projects like the new anatomy lecture hall in Graz, designed to accommodate 500 students, it’s particularly exciting to see whether the acoustic planning holds up in the built reality. The mix of tension and anticipation when stepping into the finished space for the very first time as an acoustician is hard to put into words – and always a special moment for us as specialized planners. All the more rewarding when the initial acoustic impression in an empty hall is already convincing – and the subsequent measurements clearly confirm that the defined targets have been achieved.
