KI's Biomedicum named Building of the Year!
Biomedicum on the Campus Solna has been namedthe Building of the Year. The motivation reads: “The winner of the 2019 Building of the Year award has succeeded with a project that was both complicated and extensive. The project team set their sights high as regards developing collaboration, work climate and a safety mindset – and succeeded. The project was also completed before time and at a vastly lower cost than budgeted.”
A jury consisting of leading players in the construction sector selects the Building of the Year – a prestigious award that showcases examples of the best that the construction sector produced regarding quality, collaboration, finances and design over the previous year.
The 20 projects nominated this year included KI’s new research building Biomedicum, which was officially opened last autumn. Commissioned by KI, the building was erected by Akademiska Hus with Skanska as main contractor. KI Facilities Director Rikard Becker was present when the award was presented in an event held at the Cirkus in Stockholm on 26 March.
“Incredibly gratifying and inspiring. Biomedicum is KI’s biggest ever construction project and this award is further proof that we made the right decisions. We are also very happy with the collaboration with Akademiska Hus and all the various contractors during the entire project and construction period,” Rickard Becker says.
Flagship
“We are naturally extremely pleased and proud to have received this award. Biomedicum is a flagship for experimental basic research on health and diseases – both in Sweden and around the world. Biomedicum gives KI the best possible prerequisites for successful world-class research and is designed to develop and facilitate creative encounters and collaboration and encounters across disciplinary borders and sectors and thereby initiate creativity and development. This is an important and long-term investment for KI and for Swedish research in general,” says President Ole Petter Ottersen in a statement.
Akademiska Hus are naturally also very happy to have received the award: “We are extremely proud that Biomedicum has been named Building of the Year. Our objective was to create a unique meeting-point for cross-border research and collaborate. This award is acknowledgement that we have succeeded in our work process and through good collaboration with all parties involved generate the best balance between finances, time and quality,” says Hayar Gohary, project director at Akademiska Hus. As a point of interest, Biomedicum’s neighbour and KI’s auditorium Aula Medica won the same competition five years ago.