600 lab modules coordinated across one of Europe's leading and largest biotech sites with Revizto

Consolidating 60% of the Diagnostics R&D employees into one building, built for the next 50 years 

Over the years, the Penzberg campus expanded alongside its diagnostics research division. As teams grew, they spread across the campus, occupying every available square meter of laboratory space they could find. The answer was a new research building: 34,700 m² across six full floors, a basement, and a technical center, housing 668 rooms across two connected sections for around 1,000 employees. 

The building itself consists of two sections connected by bridges within a central atrium. The laboratory wing — a six-floor reinforced concrete structure — houses fully equipped lab floors designed to accommodate both classical bench labs and large-format analytical equipment, with biosafety levels S1 and S2 separated by a corridor and floor. The office wing, a timber-hybrid structure with load-bearing elements and concrete floor slabs, brings together all desk-based work that had previously been mixed into lab floors. Analysts, group leaders, and project managers now share a common workspace, meeting each other at a friendly coffee station rather than only on formal occasions. 

The ambition went beyond consolidation. Every lab module was planned for both its initial fit-out and every possible future configuration — utility connections not yet installed, wall positions not yet built, equipment arrangements not yet needed, all mapped in the model from day one.

Concept design began in October 2020, groundbreaking followed in February 2022, and the building  reached first occupancies in October 2025, with full handover in February 2026. 

How Revizto gave every stakeholder a way into the model  

The project's IT stack combined Revit for design authoring, ACC for file management, and Revizto as the shared visualization and coordination hub. Revizto came to Penzberg through a direct recommendation from Roche Basel, whose team had been running a parallel major build roughly six to twelve months ahead. That knowledge transfer meant  Penzberg could start with a tested configuration rather than assessing their tools from scratch.  

The critical role Revizto played was access. Giving every stakeholder — project managers, trade  contractors, and research scientists with no technical drawing background — a meaningful view into  the model was not achievable with Revit alone. Revizto made the model navigable for everyone. VR  sessions were set up for researchers who are not used to plans, allowing them to experience their  future workspaces and give input before construction locked decisions in.  

Screenshots taken directly in Revizto went into steering committee presentations without  commissioning separate renderings. And when quantity takeoffs were needed for service contract  tendering, filtered model data could be extracted across the full model without specialist tools or  trade-by-trade manual counting.  

"When you have one tool and different output devices — a large screen, a VR headset, an iPad — you  navigate to what you want to see, take a screenshot, and drop it straight into the steering committee  presentation. No architect commission needed."  
Hubert Mock, Project Manager, Roche in Penzberg  

600 modules, infinite configurations: building for the lab that does not  exist yet  

The core design challenge was not building the lab as it exists today — it was building a lab that  could become something different tomorrow. Diagnostics research at this scale uses two fundamentally different lab formats: classical bench labs with standard work surfaces, and  large-format equipment labs with floor-standing analytical instruments that follow no standard  building grid. Both needed to coexist on the same floor plates, with the same utility infrastructure  above.  

The solution was modular planning: a base module, fully worked out to accommodate both lab  types, replicated approximately 600 times across the building — each copy individually adapted, but  all holding to the same structural logic. Every utility connection, whether built or not, was mapped.  Every wall position, whether required at occupancy or not, was planned. The result was a building that on day one looked like a standard initial fit-out — and on day two could be reconfigured at any point without cutting against the building's own logic. 

"A project of this complexity, with this density of installations — without Revizto it would not have worked. That is black and white: would it have worked? No." 
Hubert Mock, Project Manager, Roche in Penzberg 

Challenges and solutions 

Turning researchers into design reviewers 

Before Revizto, getting meaningful input from the scientists who would actually use the new building required either asking them to read technical drawings — which most could not — or commissioning architectural visualizations that took time and money to produce. The solution was a dedicated VR station set up specifically for user group sessions. Researchers put on headsets and walked through their future spaces before a single wall was built. They could see the spatial logic of the biosafety separation, understand how their group related to neighboring teams, and flag concerns about workflows that would have been invisible on a floor plan. The ability to take any view in Revizto, apply the correct colors and configurations, and produce a technically accurate representation — then screenshot it for a presentation or hand it to a VR headset — meant the model served as the communication layer for the entire building, from the BIM team to the research scientists. 

How Revizto Collaboration Hub enabled Roche's success 

Unified 2D/3D Environment: Provided a single navigation environment for project managers, trade contractors, and client representatives — combining plan views and 3D model access without requiring Revit licenses or specialist training across the project team. 

AR, VR & QR Codes: Enabled VR user group sessions that allowed research scientists unfamiliar with technical drawings to review and give meaningful input on their future workspaces before construction decisions were locked. 

Integrated Issue Management: Supported clash detection and coordination workflows across the building's high-density MEP installation, giving the full trade team a shared environment for identifying and resolving issues through design. 

Connected Project Intelligence: Provided project-wide model visibility that supported phase planning and configuration management across 600 lab modules — tracking initial fit-out scope against full-build capacity at every level. 

Model Data Extraction: Enabled quantity takeoffs for maintenance-relevant building components — fire dampers, shut-off valves, and technical equipment — directly from the full coordinated model for service contract tendering.