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Honorable mentions were awarded to six further exemplary architectural projects including the Faculty of Engineering Sciences of the University of Innsbruck which was remodeled and comprehensively refurbished by ATP architects engineers (Innsbruck).

The university building of the Faculty of Engineering Sciences is particularly notable for a huge reduction in energy consumption (of up to 85 %). The ecological element façade incorporates innovative compound top-hung windows with automatic solar protection and can react perfectly to extreme weather conditions. The lifecycle-oriented building services concept made it possible to create a very dense and compact low-tech building that is largely naturally ventilated and, according to the EnerPHit requirements, meets the “passive house refurbishment standard”.

This high quality in terms of energy efficiency and sustainability was made possible by the perfect interaction of architects and structural and building services engineers in the context of ATP’s integrated design process. The ATP project team was reinforced from the very earliest design phases by experts in lifecycle cost analysis, energy simulation, and technical feasibility studies.

ATP was commissioned with both the redesign and comprehensive refurbishment of the Faculties of Architecture and Engineering Sciences of the University of Innsbruck following an EU-wide competition (2009). The project has already received a number of awards including the Energy Globe Tirol 2016, the TQB (Total Quality Building) Certificate, and klima:aktiv Standard Gold. In April 2016 the Faculties of Architecture and Engineering Sciences received the “Innovative Building 2016” prize at Vienna University of Technology. In September 2016 Austria’s Federal Ministry for Transport, Innovation and Technology (bmvit) nominated the engineering tower as a “Building of the future demonstration project”, making it a landmark project at the European scale. The comprehensive refurbishment of the Faculty of Engineering Sciences in Innsbruck was one of two demonstration objects of “BIGMODERN”, a modernization initiative of the client, the Bundesimmobiliengesellschaft m.b.H., on the basis of which target criteria were tested in terms of practicality.

This is the fifth time that the Federal Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry, Environment and Water Management (BMLFUW) has organized the State Prize for Architecture and Sustainability. This honors projects which set important accents in terms of not just architecture but also sustainability in line with klimaaktiv criteria. In a multiphase process the professional jury selected eleven projects which it considered worthy of receiving the award.