The University of Antwerp pulled up a new lab building, called BlueApp, intended for scientific and technical research on sustainable chemistry.

This project was part of the Blue Gate Antwerp project which aimed to revalorize the brownfield. The designed lab building had to meet the strict site conditions, the image quality plan of the site and above all, achieve a minimum BREEAM New Construction Excellent certificate. BlueApp was an open innovation hub and pre-incubator for sustainable chemistry and was erected on the Blue Gate Antwerp site next to the incubator for sustainable chemistry Bluechem. BlueApp offers a range of technologies, including (bio)process engineering, chemical, plasma and photo-catalysis, (semi)pilot scale chemical synthesis, flow chemistry, membrane technology, innovative water treatment / nutrient recovery, biomass conversion, microbial production and downstream processing, microbiology and algae cultivation, among others.

It was clear that the design for Blue_App had to take into account sufficient flexibility to allow ad hoc testing of various technological demonstration installations. Flexibility and cost efficiency were two important design parameters, but without compromising on safety requirements that were applicable to such a building. BlueApp became a sustainable building and fulfilled at least the conditions of BGAD regarding sustainability such as striving for CO2 neutrality and a BREEAM New Construction, level Excellent, certificate. Ingenium was responsible for the design and follow-up of the technical systems; for the EPB advice and reporting; for the guidance in the BREEAM trajectory and took on the complete commissioning assignment.

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