DTU Aqua to relocate from Charlottenlund to Lyngby

For more than 80 years, Denmark’s national fisheries research institution has had its main address at Charlottenlund Castle. But not anymore, as the approximately 200 employees who today occupy the offices and laboratories at Charlottenlund Castle and its surrounding buildings will now move to DTU’s Lyngby Campus.

In Lyngby, a brand new and two fully renovated buildings are ready for DTU Aqua, DTU Vet, and the National Food Institute, which will all move in at the same time. Covering a total of 42,000 m², the buildings are the result of DTU’s biggest ever construction project since the establishment of DTU on Lundtoftesletten. The buildings will house a major part of DTU’s life science and bioengineering activities: bioscience research in the crossfield between the natural sciences and engineering.

All workplaces will be moved from Charlottenlund Castle during the Easter holidays, and the first day at work at the new premises is Tuesday 18 April 2017.

DTU Aqua’s premises in Silkeborg, Nykøbing Mors, and Hirtshals will not be relocated.

New facilities and focus on knowledge sharing

The move to DTU’s Lyngby Campus will provide DTU Aqua with significantly better laboratory conditions, research infrastructure, and state-of-the-art facilities for experimental work. The experimental facilities in the so-called ‘blue unit’, which DTU Aqua and DTU Vet use in their research, have both seawater and salted water from three underground tanks. 

The relocation and the new premises support the possibilities of knowledge sharing and collaboration across the various academic fields. Not only does this bring employees at DTU Aqua in Charlottenlund, who today are working in five different buildings in and around the castle park, closer together, but also the entire DTU, as the distance to both the other departments and the students at the university will be shorter.

 
The heart of the newly built part of the complex is the Biosphere with its common areas, canteen, café area, and meeting rooms jutting out from the floors (left).
Three underground tanks totalling 140 m3 supply the laboratories in the ‘blue unit’ with salt water for experimental work with algae, copepods, and fish (right).

81 years of fishery research at Charlottenlund Castle

Charlottenlund Castle has housed Denmark’s national fisheries research and advisory activities since 1936, when the Danish Biological Station and the Danish Institute for Fisheries and Marine Research moved into the castle. Over the years, large amounts of data about the state of fish stocks have been produced and analysed in the castle workings of offices and laboratories, and many of the world’s leading fishery biologists have attended meetings in Riddersalen (Knights Hall) and Havestuen (Garden Hall). 

In 2007, the then Danish Institute for Fisheries Research merged with DTU to become DTU Aqua the following year. The move to DTU’s campus in Lyngby is yet another step in the integration with DTU. 

Charlottenlund Castle and the surrounding buildings are owned by the Danish state, with the Danish Agency for Culture and Palaces being in charge of the future leasing of the premises.