What if TU Wien Bibliothek did not simply provide knowledge in the form of scientific literature, but made data about the library building itself available to researchers, teachers and infrastructure managers? This would turn the "building with the owls", a highly frequented institution in a central Viennese location, into a living laboratory. This idea was put forward at the TU Wien digitalization call and was a success. Together with its project partners, the research units of Building Physics and Wireless Communications, Real Estate and Facility Management and IT Solutions, the library will develop a prototype simulation model of the library building in the academic year 1010/2021. Data on room climate, energy consumption and building utilisation will be fed into this simulation model. A future refurbishment of the library building can then be based on scientific data showing the effects of individual measures. At the same time, a highly frequented building is available as a laboratory for research and teaching. All data collected during the project will be made available as open data according to the FAIR data principles.