Public-Private Partnership Tapped to Construct Austrian School Project

Seestadt Aspern, an up-and-coming district of Vienna, Austria is where a consortium of PORR and Apleona is constructing a new building for a central vocational school. The city of Vienna has commissioned the construction of an educational facility with space for 7,500 learners.

The new vocational school building in Aspern is breaking records: it’s the largest public-private partnership building construction project in Austria and is unique in terms of both its size and complexity. The educational facility will provide space for 7,500 pupils and 350 employees. It consists of a 26-meter-high main building with five floors above ground and a two-story workshop building; these are connected above ground by a glass bridge and below ground by a collector-duct corridor. There is total usable floor space of 29,000 square meters.

The project team will complete the construction work within around 32 months so the school can start operating in September 2028.

The timber-hybrid building features frame walls and façade elements, while the construction of the workshop roofs is also in timber. Kronaus Mitterer Architekten and their team of consultants were responsible for the original design up to the submission planning stage. PORR subsidiary pde Integrale Planung contributed to the implementation planning. Building Information Modeling has been used to help produce an as-built model.

The central vocational school building also stands out when it comes to sustainability. It is being built in a way that is both energy efficient and climate friendly: state-of-the-art building technology, a geothermal system with around 140 probes and photovoltaics on the roofs guarantee the supply of renewable energy, while green roofing absorbs CO2 emissions. The building will be constructed using CO2-reduced cement and the construction process itself will be optimized with the help of Lean construction, thereby eliminating any waste of resources. TQB certification in accordance with the criteria of the Austrian Sustainable Building Council is planned.