About 30 miles north of Chicago in suburban Deerfield, a construction trailer is parked behind the old headquarters of Textura — a company Oracle bought for $663 million in April 2016. A steel fence circles the site and gravel carpets the cold ground.

It may not look like much, but this unassuming site is the home of the Oracle Innovation Lab: a live construction site where the software-as-a-service firm’s global technology partners and customers come to test new tech.

Built in just three weeks last year, the Oracle Innovation Lab was initially intended to show how the company’s products could be used in the construction industry, according to Burcin Kaplanoglu, the innovation officer for Oracle’s construction and engineering unit. Over the last year, more than 850 contractors, engineers, project managers — from as far as China and as close as Chicago — have visited the site. It’s success has inspired execs to expand. Starting in late December, Oracle will add technology from its utilities and communications business units to the Lab.

Kaplanoglu declined to specify what exactly the expanded innovation hub will include or when it will be finished, but said the trailer will remain open for visits while construction is underway. Oracle will use its construction technology, along with its partners, to build the new site at the same location.

The Lab currently showcases Oracle’s four construction technologies: Textura for project management and billing software, Primavera for scheduling, Aconex for project and model collaboration and Unifier for process optimization. Officials also use Oracle Live Experience to video chat, call and record conversations among product teams.

The Lab is not a space to develop features and functions feedback for Oracle’s technologies, Kaplanoglu said. Rather it’s a space for the company to help its customers realize how best to use their technologies, as well as their partner’s products.

“I am not learning like, ‘You should have your button here or there,’” he said.

It launched with the help of eight of Oracle’s technology partners, including Bosch, which used the space to showcase its connected tools. It also launched with the help of Triax Technologies, which featured its internet of things devices that track and provide safety sensors for workers. Oracle also looked for ways to further integrate its construction products to partners like Bosch.

Keep reading this blog on builtin.com