Austro Tower

Visible from afar, Vienna's new tower - the Austro Tower is the tallest building on the Danube Canal in Vienna's third district and the fifth tallest high-rise in Austria. It offers a total of around 28,000 square meters of office space on 38 floors, plus a conference center, a company restaurant and café. The Austro Tower is the new headquarters of Soravia, Austro Control and Asfinag. The new building offers an impressive view: from the top, the new district on the Danube Canal between the TownTown business district and the Triiiple can be overlooked. In addition to the striking architecture, the building technology concept is also remarkable and has long been certified according to Leed and by the ÖGNI with platinum.

The Austro Tower is heated and cooled with water from the Danube Canal. In this way, the potential of the site is fully exploited. The water is fed into an energy center in one of the TrIIIple towers, where it is heated or cooled by high-temperature heat pumps depending on the season. The energy reaches the individual high-rise buildings via a district heating or district cooling network. Five deep wells serve as backup for the "river energy"; in an emergency, an electric boiler can also step in. The 30-centimeter-thick concrete ceilings of the individual floors are thermally activated. This form of heating and cooling is particularly energy-efficient and optimally suited to regenerative energy sources.

KGT Gebäudetechnik was commissioned by the general contractor Swietelsky to install the heating, cooling, ventilation, sanitary and sprinkler systems. Around 22,000 square meters of pipes were laid in the process. The individual modules were prefabricated on site: They each consist of a support mat and flexible pipes that convey the heating or cooling water. The system not only uses the surfaces of the ceilings for heat transfer, but also the storage capacity of the concrete.

(Text: Gisela Gary; Z+B magazine; in shortened form)