Architecture Laboratories - Education and Research in a big scale Universities experiment in different scales to teach their students the interaction between construction, function and design. But mostly these experiments stay in a scale between 1:50 to 1:200, so the size of office tables. Only rarely they go out of their Ateliers into a human/urban scale. This also comes because of economical and practical restrictions. One of the major critics against architectural educational institutions is the inability to handle the pragmatic aspects of construction. Exercises in construction are an ideal opportunity to learn in a practical sense, but without losing the focus on design. New Materials, that are foreign to architecture until now and new ways of constructing can be achieved through reconstructing, experimenting and analysing old methods. This Paper is primarily focussed on the analysis of existing laboratories for education and research, who are already experimenting in a big scale. Building up on this analysis we will establish a catalog of needed functions and characteristics, which such a room for experimenting in a big scale needs to fulfil. How can such a laboratory be planned? How can universities work together and share their resources? In the chapter permanent laboratories we analyse already existing laboratories for education and research with a focus point on construction, which are installed at a fixed location. The largest part of the analysis deals with the GAIA (Les Grands Ateliers de L´Isle d´Abeau). Further Analysis deals with the Autodesk Pier 9 in the San Francisco Bay, USA. Following this, we will analyse temporary laboratories, which also experiment in the field of architecture in a scale of 1:1. Examples are the EASA (European Architecture Student Assembly) and Bellastock in France. This study subjects will be analysed in terms of origination, their primary purpose, their context and their connections with the sociocultural surroundings, their activities, their equipment, staff size and their philosophy in the area of diffusion and publication of their activities. Following this we will work on requirements of such an institution in Austria, which should work as an analogy to the GAIA. Findings of the analysis of the other laboratories will also be taken in account.
Finally we will work out a design, how such a laboratory for education and research can be established in the East of Austria. We will construct a hypothesis, that multiple universities with studies in architecture, art and civil engineering in Graz and Vienna want to establish such laboratory to fortify their cooperation and share their resources. Furthermore we will suggest possibilities, how these institutions can enrich their sociocultural surroundings. This Paper concentrates on the analysis of existing laboratories and the possibility of an analogy in Austria, as also the question how such an institution can influence architecture and what value such a laboratory would have for universities and its location.