The institute building extends the university's existing main circulation axis westward, past the new library designed by Ortner and Ortner, and is incorporated into the comb-like structure of the existing university buildings. Two parallel building volumes house the four departments of botany, genetics, microbiology and zoology in the first and second upper floors.
A glazed communication and activities hall connects the two building volumes and opens up onto the pedestrian circulation axis to the north via the main entrance and also to the elevated open landscape to the south. The topography and vegetation extend into the unheated hall, as landscaped terraces, functioning as flowing visual and spatial connections, lending the new institute building a pleasant, open atmosphere in which to learn and conduct research. The ground floor provides access to student areas, such as lab and common rooms, the dean's office and the cafeteria. As a centre of communication, it invites both students and professors to meet and exchange thoughts and ideas, helping to give new impetus to the research conducted there.
In a solitary wood panelled structure located in the hall, two lab rooms are on each floor of the two-storey structure, situated over the main entrance. Because lab work is an important component of scientific studies, these rooms function as »spaces within a space«, at once incorporated into the large hall and yet directly associated with the individual departments, without, however, any disruption caused to ongoing research.
Anthracite-coloured cement fibreboards make up the façades of the two lateral structures. The fixed glazing of the post and rail construction window front is interrupted at regular intervals by the narrow wooden tilt-turn window frames. Mounted on the façade's exterior is a flexible horizontal sunscreen made of flat aluminium lamellae that are mounted on to the building-high pilaster strips.
