Cobe create inspired by entrepeneur workspace for new university centre

The AAU INNOVATE Science & Innovation Hub designed by Tenderstream member Cobe is now open to students, researchers and businesses at Aalborg University in Denmark. The 8,500 sq m building is intended to provide an innovative environment dedicated to interdisciplinary research and development, providing laboratories, digital workshops and facilities for students, entrepreneurs and businesses to work and collaborate. 

As an extension to the university, the hub is an inviting building, with spaces for both lively research and focused concentration. Users can inhabit un-programmed workshop spaces called Garages, referring to the places where some of the world’s most successful entrepreneurs started their careers. Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak built their first Apple computer in a garage, as was the case for the first products by Bang & Olufsen, Hewlett Packard, Amazon, Google and Microsoft. Inside the hub’s garages, users define their own rules and methods of co-working, creating space for new ideas to flourish. 

Cobe recognise that innovation tends not to follow a singular, systematic approach, but rather involves frequent shifts between stages, scales and mediums. The building’s design supports these shifts by creating seemless connections. A horizontal, terraced volume fosters collaboration by provising spaces that enable meetings between users, occurring naturally as part of the building’s daily flow. The largest and most public functions are situated on the ground floor, becoming more separated and private higher up the building, where there are areas for quiet, individual work. 

Lucy Nordberg
Tenderstream Head of Research

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