The store is located in the centre of Copenhagen and is accessible to over a million people within 20 minutes by bike, public transport or car. Twenty metres above the street, a green roof garden offers a respite at an otherwise hectic intersection near the main train station, the historic Meatpacking District and the city's inner harbour. Copenhagen aims to become the world's first carbon-neutral city by 2025. IKEA Copenhagen will deliver on the city's green vision for the future and will be an important step in IKEA's ambitious commitment to become a circular enterprise by 2030. To make the building and daily energy consumption as sustainable as possible, the city store is aiming for BREEAM 'excellent' certification - one of the world's leading sustainability ratings. 250 trees and shrubs, greenery covering the facade, 1,450 m2 of solar panels and the reuse of canal water to cool the store are among the key elements to achieve this goal.
"Monte Alentejano" is a type of housing where the houses have a simple gabled roof, an imposing chimney and an elongated floor plan sitting on top of a hill. The house was designed to be fully self-sufficient at the client's request.
Converting a 1920s industrial building into residential housing and office space. The building houses 10 loft apartment units. The building was among 30 nominations for the Czech Architecture Award in 2021 and won an award from the Ministry of Industry and Trade in the competition.
The Lankuaikei Agricultural Development Directorate (LAD) in Shanghai is an 11-storey terraced office building that combines high-tech and low-tech sustainability strategies under a technological roof with solar panels providing shading for the building. Located near the lake in the heart of Lingang New Town, the building is designed as an agricultural oasis in a rapidly developing urban area in Shanghai and one of the greenest and smartest sustainable buildings in China.
The total capacity of the outdoor swimming pool is 112 people and is designed to be wheelchair accessible. Pergolas with benches will be built by the children's pool, and mature trees will be added to the area to provide shade for hot summer days.
A single-family house with a basement with a garage and two residential units, built in a 5.5m wide gap. Energy-wise, the house is designed to be able to operate independently most of the year without the need to draw power from the grid. An electric car or other electric means of transport can be connected to the system. At the same time, eco-friendly materials have been used as much as possible for both the construction and the treatment of the interior and exterior surfaces. The system includes a retention tank located in the garden. This is used to accumulate rainwater for watering and flushing. The house was designed for a young family that will use one apartment. The second apartment can be rented out and thus reduce the cost of monthly mortgage payments by more than half.
Suntime solar system for preheating hot water in the Slévačská 905 apartment building in Prague. A total of 100 solar collectors and a 9,000 litre storage tank were installed. Preheating is provided by the district heating system. Update 12/2021: This system produced a total of 558,970 kWh from February 2016 to December 2021, i.e. approx. 2,012 GJ. In addition, it consumed 6,463 kWh of electricity to drive the circulators and hot water circulation pumps around the house. For every kWh of electricity consumed, 86.5 kWh of heat from the solar collectors is then generated.
Among the unconventional solar collector implementations is the Landhaus St. Georg hotel, which is located in a beautiful alpine setting near the Austrian ski resort of Schladming. In the autumn of 2019, the hotel's water heating technology was upgraded with the help of installation partner Quest elements Ltd. During the modernisation of the hotel's water heating system, 16 TS 500 solar collectors with an effective collector area of 36 m² were installed. The collectors heat water in 3 new storage tanks, each with a capacity of 800 l and a total capacity of 2,400 l, replacing the old boilers from 1988. The system is sized to cover the hot water needs of 40 to 50 guests during the summer season without additional heating in the boiler. This installation has brought several benefits. In addition to the functional benefit of the solar system heating the water and saving the owners money, the added value is that the hotel does not unnecessarily burden the environment. In addition, the installation is well managed from an aesthetic point of view. As is often the case with such installations, it was not easy to fit it into the existing space, but the installation partner met the challenge. While in the summer the system is sized to cover the hot water needs of 40 to 50 guests, in the winter season the solar collectors connect to the existing boilers, which are also used for heating, and at least preheat the water in times of poor conditions. In the low season, when the hotel is closed to guests, the solar collectors are used to heat the entire building. As the hotel is situated at an altitude of 800 m, it is advisable to bring some thermal comfort to the building in spring and autumn. In the near future, it is planned to add online monitoring of the temperatures in the storage tanks and also on the collectors via the internet for better control and monitoring of the system. The estimated return on investment for the solar system was for 5 years.
The Prague 7 Town Hall honours the historical context of the district, respects its specifics, and honours the industrial aesthetic in Holešovice often built on brick detail. In addition to its high aesthetic qualities, brick has one huge advantage - it can age, it does not need to be cared for, it can last for hundreds of years and it is beautiful in its old age. Although this is a relatively new building technologically it is a standard project,only space is thought of here so that it can be further developed energetically.
The extension is functionally connected to the already existing building P on the premises of the University Hospital Olomouc. The extension meets the strict requirements for buildings in passive standard and includes a green retention roof. Indoor cooling, forced ventilation and humidity control are used to achieve an optimal indoor climate. Logistical efficiency is supported by a piped mail connection. Overall, it creates a space that not only fulfils its function, but also combines modern design with quality patient care. The six-storey building is also unique in that the interior is decorated with artworks that were originally designed specifically for cancer patients as part of the Art of Healing, Healing through Art project. Retention green roof - Emphasis on interior acoustics - Meets the requirements for buildings in the passive standard - Exhibited artworks by Miloš Karásek, Michal Zajaček and Luděk Bárta
The proposed building is located approximately on the site of the existing Building F, however, the new volume has significantly higher space requirements. The new building will be constructed in a closed, publicly accessible area of the Olomouc University Hospital. The complex is located in the built-up part of the Nová Ulice district. The new Pavilion F will be located next to Pavilion Y, to which it will be connected by a connecting neck. The building is designed in a ridge-like layout, which ensures sufficient daylight and is also advantageous from an epidemiological point of view, as it eliminates through-traffic. The ridges perpendicularly intersect the taller continuous mass of the building respecting the contour line and the existing road on the northern boundary of the site. This type of layout breaks up the relatively massive mass into smaller segments to a scale that respects the existing campus and its relationship to the UP Faculty of Medicine building. A wide green belt with existing mature trees remains on the southeast side.
The clinic has a basement and four floors above ground and is connected to the surrounding pavilions by closed bridges. It includes an intensive care unit, rooms adapted for obese or otherwise disabled patients. Surgery and meeting rooms with teaching spaces for students. Pavilion "Y" is designed to contribute to the healing process itself and to evoke positive feelings in patients. Above all, the U-shaped floor plan with bevelled window frames for natural lighting, easy orientation even for disabled patients and outdoor greenery. Sustainable technologies and practices. It is the first hospital building in the world to meet the passive energy standard, and the first in the Czech Republic to use cooled ceilings.
The library is designed in the outline of an oval square with external dimensions of approximately 75 x 75 m. The building has six floors above ground and three underground floors. NP and 2. The first floor is public with additional functions (café, lecture hall, exhibition space, branch of the city library, night study room) and is a space for free communication and meeting of visitors to the university campus and the library. The actual operation of the library begins on Level 2. NP. The design of the technology was guided by a desire to limit its scale, use simple durable systems, and make maximum use of natural principles. By arranging it in large airy spaces, including administrative open space, it was possible to simplify the design and scale of the technology and maximize the efficiency of its use. Heat recovery in the winter is a commonplace feature. A simple and clever speciality is the use of natural ventilation and pre-cooling. The building thus requires a minimum of separate cooling units. Heating and cooling is designed primarily using concrete core activation technology, with the ceilings serving as radiant or cooling surfaces, thus taking advantage of the storage capacity of the structure. The whole building is then controlled by an integrated control system, which multiplies the possibilities of the technology by taking into account the interconnections.
The architecture of the elegant residence in the environment of the First Republic villas in Prague's Strašnice completes the character of the locality and cultivates the intersection of Pod Třebešín and K Červenému dvoru. The low-energy residence has three compact floors, followed by a retreated fourth and fifth floor with extensive terraces. The new building offers 15 energy-passive, airy and light-filled apartments with generous layouts from 2kk to 6kk ranging in size from 71m² to 188m² and garage parking spaces on the underground floor. A controlled ventilation system and heat recovery ensure a healthy indoor environment. A new generation heat pump is used to heat the hot water, providing water heating using the heat from the exhaust air from individual apartments. The waste heat generated is thus recycled and safely reused.
A deliberately unobtrusive house with great design and clean lines. Its shape is based on the topography of the Giant Mountains, at the foot of which it stands. With its well-equipped lecture hall, pleasant classroom and small laboratory, it serves locals and visitors, children and adults alike, to learn about natural contexts. The gallery with its glass façade hosts, among others, artists of a wide range of disciplines. The building is energy efficient with very little heat loss. Heat pump technology is used for heating. The main load-bearing structures and the walls of the underground part are made of concrete. The internal partitions and furniture are designed in wood. The furniture is made of plywood boards so that all parts of the boards are used and no waste is generated.
Zahálka is a modern complex of seven apartment buildings, which is being built in several stages in Prague 4 in the neighbourhood of the Vltava River and the Hodkovičky golf course. It stands out not only for its height, but also for its architectural concept and emphasis on ecology. The entire complex is designed exclusively for underground parking, so that the entire surface is preserved for greenery. Dozens of trees, gardens and meadows interspersed with paths will complement the revitalised Zátišský Brook. The quality of the project is evidenced by the BREEAM certification at the Very Good level, in which KORE participated. In addition to the exceptional location of Prague's Hodkovice, which will delight every lover of nature and active life, the certification also positively evaluated the water efficiency, forced ventilation with heat recovery, biodiversity support and the creation of an ideal space for private and family life. The quality of the envelope was also verified during construction by a blower-door test, which confirmed the tightness of the envelope at the Passive House level.
RECONSTRUCTION: The extensive modernisation of the international hotel Thermal in Karlovy Vary concerns a significant part of the technical equipment, which was the most important part of the project for the investors. The Thermal Hotel complex had been in disrepair for 40 years, although it is now considered a valuable legacy of the Machonin family's work. The renovation essentially consists of the hotel's façade, the interiors of the rooms and corridors, the modernisation of the ventilation system including the cooling sources that provide both heating and cooling, including individual control of the indoor environment in the rooms, the making of the swimming pool complex with its spring water more attractive and then the greatly enhanced management of the heat in the waste water, which is multiply recuperated and removed from the water before it is discharged into the sewer. The "icing on the cake" is the photovoltaic power plant on the roof of the hotel with full use of the electricity generated in the hotel. The 'intake' air handling unit located below and the 'extraction' unit located under the roof have been removed. The new ventilation of the hotel rooms is based on just one unit under the roof, which is fitted with a heat recovery system with a heat saving of around 75%. With a minimum of work, the existing ductwork could be used. Smaller air handling units were also changed in a similar style, for catering operations etc. The hotel is a meticulously designed and, for its time, structurally and technically advanced, extremely refined, noble and generous environment for spa and festival operations. With its highly exposed location, it is sensitively integrated into the existing environment (by terracing and view-suppressing the ensemble within the spa valley by maximally adhering to the green slopes). The design shows a strong desire to relate to the massing of the existing buildings and the exceptional character of the landscape. The building combines, with exceptional success, the international style and the new brutalism that was close to the Makhonins and widely applied internationally at the time of their creative productivity. An important aspect of the work is also the modernist material arrangement, which speaks truthfully to the outside and draws attention to the functional layout within the buildings. The precise, clear and functional layout is a strength. Not to be overlooked is the material rawness of expression and the brutalist sculptural expression, particularly in the rendering of the base and halls, in contrast to the subtle to minimalist expression of the spa restaurant and pool. POOL: The sanatorium was separated and perched on a rock outcrop next to the hotel, where a unique thermal water pool was built. Part of the water (about 15%) was also the water from the Karlovy Vary spring, the temperature in the pool reached 26-28 °C. Later, however, the pool fell into disrepair and since 2012 it has been closed during the winter, and since 2015 it has been closed permanently in the summer. Renovation of the entire hotel, including the pool, began in late 2019/2020. The pool was opened in August 2021. The area was divided into two pools, one of which contains only warm spring water.
On 4 November 2004, by Decision No. 40250491, the municipality of Kněžice was granted support from the European Regional Development Fund ERDF and the State Environmental Fund of the Czech Republic, pursuant to Article 5(8) of the Ministry of the Environment Directive No. 8/2004 on the provision of financial resources from the Operational Programme Infrastructure - Priority 3, including co-financing from the State Environmental Fund. The central heating plant and biogas station Kněžice started operation on 28 August 2006, at which time the CHP was put into operation for the first time. Gradually by the end of the year, the central heating system for individual households was put into operation. In total, there are 149 transfer stations and this figure includes more than 90% of the permanent population connected to the central system. A biogas plant with one CHP unit with an electrical output of 330 kW is in continuous operation and produces electricity from agricultural, food and other materials and waste for sale to the electricity grid and heat for heating the municipality. It also processes straw, maize, clover and other surplus and newly grown biomass. These 100% renewable resources are used to produce biogas, electricity, hot water to heat most of the village, biomass heating pellets and high quality fertilizer for agriculture. A biomass boiler plant with two hot water boilers with a total heat output of 1200 kW is operated on an as-needed basis during the heating season only, supplying heat when the excess heat from the biogas plant alone would not be sufficient to heat the village. The boiler house and the biogas plant are located in the municipal premises at the north-eastern edge of the village and are connected to each other by a heat pipe and information cabling. They are connected to the 22 kV electricity distribution network via a 0,4/22 kV transformer. Ductless heat distribution throughout the village and automatic heat transfer stations in the houses ensure year-round continuous heat transfer from the boiler house and the biogas plant to all connected buildings in the village. A total of 149 houses in Knezice are connected to the heat distribution system, i.e. about 95% of the total heat consumption in the village. The year-round heat consumption of the connected houses is approximately 2000 MWh, or 7200 GJ per year. The electricity produced by the biogas plant, unlike the heat, is not fed directly into the individual houses. Households and local businesses continue to receive their electricity from the local distribution company, ČEZ Distribuce. The Knezice biogas plant supplies more electricity to this distribution network per year than the entire village and the entire new facility consumes. Electricity production at the Kněžice biogas plant has so far been around 2400 MWh of electricity per year in the current year and has increased to around 2600 MWh in 2009. The biogas plant's own electricity consumption and the biomass boiler's own consumption amount to around 15% of this electricity production. The net electricity supply from Knezice to the electricity grid is currently about 2200 MWh/year. Knezice, with its 410 inhabitants, produces an average of 6 MWh of electricity per citizen per year and delivers an average of 5 MWh of electricity per year to the electricity grid for each of its citizens. Total thermal energy supply to the connected buildings before the project is 18 721 GJ at the foot of the buildings. After implementation: Total heat energy delivered to the connected buildings for the period 2006-2007 was 16 152 GJ at the foot of the buildings - heat energy for heating was delivered to 149 buildings, the original assumption was 126 buildings. Energy savings in heat delivered after project implementation: 18 721- 16 152 + 9 428 = 11 997 GJ
The building itself is divided into two approximately equal sized sections, connected by a circulation neck with an external all-glass lift and central staircase. The rear floors are set back, largely glazed with a walkout terrace. The significant slope of the ground towards the north-west is overcome at the point of the neck by a curved staircase leading to the canopied entrance of the building. Longitudinal continuous louvres in the lintels and long windows form the dominant morphological element of the facades. The necessary reinforced concrete retaining walls are also an important artistic and dynamic element
The whole building is six storeys high with one underground floor. The underground floor serves as a collective garage for cars. On the first floor there is a restaurant with facilities and premises for the central administration of the building. The second floor is reserved for conferences. On the third to fifth floors there are hotel rooms with facilities and a wellness area, the sixth floor opens onto a roof terrace. Heating of the hotel is provided by a pair of Danfoss heat pumps, which draw heat from the ground thanks to 5 boreholes from a depth of 150 metres. A two-kilometre-long underground labyrinth, in which liquid is constantly flowing, is in turn used to store heat from the hotel in the ground during the summer. The climate in the restaurant and conferences is taken care of by a powerful air conditioning system that controls not only the temperature but also the air quality. To maintain thermal comfort in the hotel rooms, an atypical combination of underfloor heating and ceiling cooling without the use of fans is chosen. A gas-fired CHP unit has been installed in the MHA building adjacent to the hotel to provide the hotel with electricity in the event of an emergency. However, the CHP unit still supplies electricity to the MHA building in normal operation and the heat generated is used to heat both MHA and the hotel. In summer, the heat from the CHP unit is used to cool the hotel through an absorption chiller. Heat from the hotel's wastewater is also used for borehole temperature recovery and DHW preheating.
The Šutka swimming complex was opened to the public in December 2012 and today it can offer its visitors not only a 50-metre indoor swimming pool, but also a whirlpool, a wild river, 2 water slides, a waterfall, a relaxation pool, a paddling pool for children and a water bar with refreshments. For wellness enthusiasts, there are two Finnish saunas with outdoor cooling pools and two steam baths. For maximum relaxation, our wellness centre also offers the possibility of booking a classic massage, which will exclusively enrich your relaxation. There is also a teaching pool for our youngest visitors, which is used not only by swimming schools and courses, but also by parents with children outside of school hours. In the summer months, there are outdoor terraces for visitors with a beautiful view of Prague.
The 104-metre-high skyscraper situated on Pankrácká Plain will offer approximately 130 unusually luxurious one- to five-bedroom apartments and penthouses with private rooftop pools and gardens. The designed mass of the building symbol "V" is complemented by a conceptually worked area of greenery in the parterre. The appearance of the house is defined by the admitted structural system - ceiling slabs and vertical columns and pillars. The glass perimeter walls are recessed, creating numerous balconies. The proposed colour of the structures rising to the surface is white, the glass wall divisions in natural aluminium; the aim is to unify all the solitaires in the Pentagon in colour
The Kendeda Building for Innovative Sustainable Design was created to support environmental education, research and a public forum for public outreach. The project is the first of its kind in the Southeastern United States to achieve full Living Building certification, and sets a new standard for sustainability - demonstrating that living buildings are possible in even the harshest climates. Translated with DeepL.com (free version)
The 7 Ruzyně Apartments is located in Prague 6 - Ruzyně in the area of the sports union TJ Ruzyně. The building has three above-ground, one underground floor, and contains a total of 7 apartments, hence the name 7 Ruzyně Apartments. The architectural design is based on the analysis of the land and its orientation to the cardinal points. The distinctive mass composition of the building is based on the horizontal shift of the volumes of the daily parts of the apartments within each floor. This creates terraces and loggias between the individual volumes. The northern part, on the other hand, is quiet, consisting of a simple prism containing bedrooms, bathrooms and a staircase. The windows on the southern façade are protected against overheating by sunblinds made of steel porous panels. The residential units are 3+kk in size with the ideal orientation of the living areas to the south, the bedrooms have an east and west orientation. All common areas in the house are designed as wheelchair accessible. In the underground floor there is a collective garage for 7 cars, 6 cellar cubicles, cleaning room, boiler room and one apartment. In the above-ground part there are 6 residential units with a terrace or loggia. Structurally, the building is designed as a reinforced concrete monolith, the windows are aluminum with pre-set assembly, the facades are insulated with mineral wool, the plaster is two-layered, sanded. The building is heated by an air-water heat pump located on the roof.
A counseling and education center with a teaching garden and an urban farm. This project has won numerous awards for the implementation of solutions in an environmental context.
The Elča and Emča apartment buildings, with a total of 48 apartments, were built between 2012 and 2016. The name Elča is derived from the famous tea cubes that were produced in the first half of the 20th century by the Modřany sugar factory, whose premises originally stood on the project site. Two separate three-storey buildings with their own entrances and entrances to the underground floor contain a total of 48 apartments and a sufficient number of garage spaces for residents. Most of the apartments are in the desirable 3+kk and 4+kk layouts, but interested parties can choose from a wide range of 2+kk to 5+kk. The well-designed layout of the flats, facades and adjacent ground floor, which we have worked with landscape architects to design, will satisfy the current requirements for modern living. This project of ours also won the first prize in the "Best of Real Estate 2016" competition for its exceptional and sensitive architectural concept of modern low-rise and low-energy houses, which in the extensive brownfield site of the former Modřany sugar factory very naturally connected the original development of family houses with the newly created residential viladoms. LOXIA provided the architectural study, zoning decision, building permit, implementation documentation and author's supervision.
City Green Court in Prague 4, Pankrác, on the corner of Hvězdova and Pujmanová streets, is a leasable office building, which offers its users approximately 16,000 m2 of comfortable office space on eight floors, concentrated around a spacious, naturally ventilated inner atrium in the summer months, covered by a glass roof. The main entrance to the building is designed from the south, from a public space that opens onto the park on the west side and is bounded on the east side by the neighbouring City Tower, the ground floor is enlivened by a café with a summer terrace. The architecture of the building is significantly influenced by the investor's ambition to build an ecologically advanced building. Its glazed facades are articulated by vertical solid panels, complemented on the south and west sides by projecting sunlamps to prevent overheating of the interior. The City Green Court is a green building, not only in its low energy consumption in its operation, but in a number of other criteria such as minimal consumption of potable water, the use of rainwater for building technology, a daylight-dependent lighting control system, the use of local materials and more. City Geen Court is the first office building in the country to achieve LEED Platinum certification. Other notable awards include 1st Best of Realty 2012 in the New Office Centers category, and Best Office Development CIJ Awards 2012.
The forty-metre high composition, based on a plan of five rounded triangles, adheres its envelope to the basic grid of the orthogonal system present in the territory. The main function of the building is as a tenant office. The portions in contact with the ground floor house services, including a lunch restaurant that splits its use between the public and the building staff. A non-negligible area (with respect to the perceptibility of the building from surrounding high-rise buildings) is the roof lot. It is the full "fifth facade" of the building. It is therefore conceived as an intensive roof garden and is entirely intended for access by all tenants to these areas. From the beginning of the design process, emphasis was placed on the strict relocation of technology outside the roof garden area (most of it ended up in the basement of the building). The building is full of technological innovations, such as: heat recovery from the sewage water of the V-tower and Main Point Pankrác (Veolia) emission absorbing facade of the building - self-cleaning glass (Pilkington, Skanska LOP) atypical panoramic lifts (Otis) passive shielding fittings made of special aluminium alloy (Lněnička kovovýroba, Skanska LOP) standing office luminaire that reacts to the presence of a person, the intensity of daylight and the user's preferred (comfort) light intensity; lamps communicate with each other and create both direct and indirect ambient lighting (Philips)
The Dorn multifunctional building is located in the southern part of the city centre in close proximity to Brno's main railway station and the Vaňkovka shopping gallery. Dorn, whose solid brick cladding connects to the neighbouring building of the historic Vaňkovka Engineering Plant and the new shopping centre, is the largest building with a suspended brick cladding in the Czech Republic. The building's original "slender" body is not just a formal composition, but contributes to the rational design of modern office workplaces. In fact, the narrow internal layout has made it possible to create large offices with plenty of daylight for each worker. Although the building is fully air-conditioned and ventilated, great emphasis has been placed on allowing natural ventilation by opening windows to ensure the overall psychological well-being of the occupants. The Dorn commercial complex is characterised by its extremely low energy consumption. Among other things, thanks to the use of a heat pump as a source of heat and cooling, retention tanks for rainwater collection with the possibility of its further use for watering gardens, flushing toilets and more.
The Sono Centre building, which contains a music club, restaurant and hotel, uses a range of measuring devices to help automate the building. These include HVAC controls, individual office room controls, heat pump control integration, a garage system and many more. We chose the materials we used to keep it as simple as possible. The skeleton of the building is cast in reinforced concrete. We consider the most important thing to be the use of fully tinted black spherical glass, which is not seen in the Czech Republic in this scale and colour. These glasses guarantee 30 percent light attenuation, which brings savings in air conditioning. We had to modify the size because no one was able to produce the glass. In the end, with only three glassworks in the world, one in China and another in Europe, we chose the Finnish one. Because the radii are the same, the glazing ended up not being that much more expensive than a conventional flat facade. In any case, I appreciate the courage of the investor to follow through with the idea. The façade holds the lines thanks to the spherical glass, if it were straight it would jump and not be pretty. I apply contrasts in my work, leaving some parts in their raw state and adding perfectly managed structural or interior details to accentuate them. In general, I like glass as a material, as it allows for great shape possibilities.
The urban concept of the new building of the regional headquarters of ČSOB was based on a review and analysis of the relationship of the building plot to the urban development on the Elbe river embankment. The form of the HHQ building encloses the changing space of the waterfront, which is derived from the city. The building stands out from the line and looks back towards the city. The shape of the building's mass creates a 'hugging' space towards the new pedestrian footbridge over the Elbe and towards the bypass. The building has a distinctive symmetrical plan form with two external and one internal atrium. The recessed volume of the building at the corners helps to bring the main entrances closer to the very centre of the building. The ground floor of the building is semi-public with a café and restaurant. The architecture of the building reflects the values and social responsibility of the developer, which were defined, among other things, in relation to the new building by the following terms: progressive, dynamic, light and clean, yet stable and coherent. A unique graphic monolithic concrete technology is implemented in the building as part of the information system.The building is architecturally designed as a compact whole with minimal subdivisions. This achieves a very good ratio of the area of the envelope to the cubic volume and the usable area of the building. The percentage of glazed vertical façade in the rooms with permanent office workstations is 65% (based on the clear height of the room). Appropriate placement of openings in the building envelope and roof can achieve natural ventilation of the building for most of the year. The building is heated and cooled by heat pumps. 107 energy boreholes up to 200 metres deep serve as an energy source. The building is not connected to a source of energy other than electricity. The building makes consistent use of natural sources of heat and cold and, of course, heat recovered from internal sources, which allows for extremely economical operation. Some of the windows are equipped with electromotive controls, which also allow the building to be ventilated at night according to the immediate climatic conditions and the expected temperature development in the following days.
Jaguar Land Rover Nitra is located in the west of the country, an hour's drive from the capital Bratislava. It cost the company €1.4 billion ($1.59 billion) to build, covers 300,000 square metres and has an annual production of 150,000 vehicles. The site was built on greenfield land, but the company is working to offset its carbon footprint and social burden on the environment - Jaguar Land Rover has awarded nearly 500 hours of volunteer work to projects in Nitra and surrounding communities, launched its first employee grant program to support 12 local projects, including Nitra's first therapeutic sensory room, and recently opened a new endowment fund in partnership with the Pontis Foundation. Over the past three years, Jaguar Land Rover has implemented new training programmes to inspire the next generation of automotive engineers in Slovakia.
The Port Carolina project consists of four phases with a total of 588 new homes. The permeability of the area from Rohanské nábřeží, through the inner block to the cycle path along the Vltava River is ensured by a system of interconnected passages and columns. Thanks to an agreement between the developer and the energy supplier, customers get a product with a 100% renewable supply. The public space works with a number of principles that support the plant and animal diversity of the urban landscape - areas of natural meadow plants, local tree species, as well as elements providing shelter for many species of insects, reptiles, amphibians and birds have found their place here. In the parterre, visitors will find birdhouses, an insect hotel or a stone wall for small animals. The space is functionally complemented by spaces reserved for car-sharing and bike racks that promote eco-mobility. Bicycles are also a welcome means of transport for rides on the cycle path that runs in close proximity to the project. To further promote ecomobility and cycling, we have placed a service bike rack next to the cycle path.
The building is set in the exposed corner position of Argentinská and Plynární Streets and is a symbolic gateway to a large transformation area - the brownfield of the former Prague Bubny railway station. The 25,000 sqm HPP office building has a simple cubic volume with an accentuated corner facing Argentinská Street. Thanks to the H-shaped floor plan concept, the building creates a residential landscape in the ground floor with an overlap into the wider public space. The outdoor living spaces have been transferred from the parterre to the building itself. There are outdoor terraces for employees on each floor with a uniform concept of greenery planted in white flowers. This concept graduates towards Plynárna Street, where the façade is perforated by a set of exterior walkways connecting the two parts of the building. This creates a vertical landscape that reflects the life inside the building. The building also tries to accommodate public life: there is also a grocery store, a pharmacy, a small clinic and a kindergarten run by the Prague 7 Municipality, a running track on the roof and a public garden with a multifunctional sports field, an open air cinema and facilities for cyclists on the ground floor.
The library has the outline of an oval square measuring approximately 75x75m. The building has six floors above ground and three underground floors. The 1st floor and the 2nd floor are public with additional functions (café, lecture hall, exhibition space, branch of the city library, night reading room) and is a space for free communication and meeting of visitors. The library operations start on the 2nd floor level. The other floors house free selections, study rooms, classrooms and administration. The concept of a "technology classroom" is exceptional and has been reflected not only in the architectural design, but also in the interior design, graphic design and artistic interventions. It is the sophisticated comprehensive design through the involvement of a multidisciplinary team that makes NTK exceptional. The 15x15m structure is large-span and pre-stressed, allowing for significant variation in the internal environment, scaling to the large spaces and supporting the tone of the façade. Study and work areas are concentrated in areas with natural light, while books on shelves are in contrast to the depth of the layout. The design of the technology was guided by a desire to limit its scale, use simple durable systems and make maximum use of natural principles (activation of the concrete core, heat recovery, natural ventilation at night). The roof with extensive greenery serves to retain rainfall. HVAC info: The NTK building is architecturally designed as a compact unit with minimal articulation. This achieves a very good ratio of the area of the envelope to the usable area of the building. The separation of the underground garage space by a technical floor from the above-ground part of the building, which has higher demands on the indoor climate, is also energetically advantageous. The layout of the above-ground floors respects the orientation of the building to the cardinal points. The large rooms are located at the SE, SW and NW facades, the office wing is located at the NE facade. This results in more even lighting, especially in the offices, during the day and throughout the year. The optimised area of transparent fillings in 2.-6. NP, which does not exceed 50-70% of the area of the envelope belonging to the given space. The transparent areas of the envelope are provided with external shading. The optimised architectural and structural design of the NTK allows for efficient use of the building's storage capacity. A large-scale heavy radiant heating and cooling system for the rooms (so-called concrete core activation) was installed in the building, supplemented by fully automatic natural ventilation. The natural ventilation is also used for night pre-cooling of the concrete structures during the summer period. This is a system that is still relatively little used in the Czech Republic. Forced ventilation is mainly used at extreme outdoor temperatures and in rooms with increased demands on the indoor climate (book storages), with increased heat load (computer rooms) or where it is required from a hygienic point of view (rooms without natural ventilation in PP, toilets). The proposed technical solution leads to a reduction in installed cooling and heating capacity while maintaining thermal comfort. The cold source, which is used to cool the ventilation air in forced ventilation systems during the day, is used for pre-cooling of the building structures (activation of the concrete) at night. Combined with a large-span 15 × 15 m module structure and a double-sided cross-prestressed ceiling slab, it is reportedly the first building of its kind in the world.
The aim of LIKO-S was to create an inspiring place that shows that it is possible to build buildings that have a positive impact on their surroundings. Buildings that are in harmony with nature, independent of external resources but at the same time able to fulfil the required functions very well. LIKO-Noe retains water through green facades and a retention tank. This combats rising temperatures and heat island formation. At the same time, it uses only renewable energy sources for operation. The LIKO-Noe office building is the development centre of LIKO-S, a manufacturing and construction company based in Slavkov u Brna. It is composed of two parts connected by a corridor, which are an office building of less than 180 square metres and a concrete acoustic chamber of 50 square metres. The roof and facades of the building are partly covered by plants, which together cover an area of 350 square metres. This means that the green area has increased by approximately 120 square metres since the construction of the LIKO-Noe building. The wetland facade and roof The roof of the concrete acoustic chamber and one of the external walls of the building are also planted with plant species that are able to purify the wastewater generated by the plant. The wetland roof and façade cover an area of 80 square metres. The treated water is controlled in a sump. If it meets the hygiene requirements, LIKO-S uses it for irrigation, flushing toilets or to supply the retention pond that lines the building's terrace. The surface area of the pond is 440 square metres. Both the green facade and the water surface contribute to the development of biodiversity and maintain a pleasant microclimate around the building. The system also cools the surface of the building. In summer, the surface temperature on the surrounding roofs is up to 70 degrees Celsius. The temperature on the surface of the Liko-Noe roof is lower than the ambient air. For example, at 28 degrees Celsius in the surrounding area, the surface of the LIKO-Noe roof is only 24 degrees Celsius. Natural thermal stabilisation The use of energy in the building is guided by the concept of natural thermal stabilisation. This means that the building uses only natural energy sources. The sun, wind, earth, trees and the orientation of the building both heat and cool. The main source of energy is the heat pump, whose primary energy source is the ground collector. The 8 solar collectors are facing south. Solar energy is also obtained by reflection from the water surface. The experimental building is composed of two parts: the above-ground part is made as a prefabricated wooden building made of load-bearing CLT panels, the walls are insulated with diffusion-open sprayed insulation and the final cladding is a living facade; the wooden building was chosen with regard to the environmental friendliness of wood as a building material and the speed of construction - the assembly took only 27 days, but was preceded by a year of preparation. The underground part, which houses the acoustic chamber, is made of monolithic concrete. The architecture of the building presents a dichotomous concept of space, its duality enhancing the effect on people. He feels that he is entering something connected to the earth, to the primordial essence, visually represented by large wheels full of greenery. The internal structure corresponds to the external structure, the weight of the structure is negated by its truth and what remains is a spatial experience with a horizon that flows seamlessly from the interior to the exterior.
The company has retained the existing building, built in 1986, and used it as the basis for the new design: a minimalist architecture that reinterprets the Alpine style. The typical pitched roofs have been retained, but the façade has been simplified through a white concrete facade - a visual impression that evokes the surrounding mountains. Inside, Peter Pichler enhances this minimalist aesthetic with spare wooden elements that exude a harmonious calm: the same feeling one experiences in vast snowy spaces and on the peaks of the Alps. Prefabricated structures were used as much as possible in the hotel, which made the construction significantly faster and cheaper. The first two underground floors are made of concrete, while the upper floor is made of wood. In terms of energy efficiency, the hotel has been awarded the most important local sustainability certificate, called Casa Clima, which is the highest category "A". The owners try to promote sustainable tourism - offering a shuttle service from the station or the possibility to charge electric cars.
Hostětín in the White Carpathians has been on the path of sustainability and independence from external energy sources since 1996. Cheap heat is provided by a municipal boiler house using wood chips from nearby forests, and the installation of a municipal root water treatment plant has also reduced costs. Of course, the installation of solar panels on public buildings was a matter of course, and their passive house example burns up to ten times less energy than a conventional one. In addition, Hostětín uses apples from local growers to produce bio-oil. Thanks to the enlightened approach of all levels of local government involved, the help of non-profit organisations, in particular ZO ČSOP Veronica and the Partnership Foundation, financial support and know-how from abroad, measures have gradually been implemented here since the 1990s, which have made it possible to increase the energy self-sufficiency of the municipality and energy savings or to make greater use of renewable sources of energy. At the same time, they have had a positive impact on the community's sense of belonging and have helped to increase the number of visitors to the village. THE FIRST STEP: ROOT WATER TREATMENT PLANT The first step on the road to a sustainable municipality was the construction of a root treatment plant in 1997. Despite initial mistrust and little experience with this type of wastewater treatment in the country, the technology was chosen, which, among many other advantages, brings significant savings in electricity. In fact, root treatment plants contain no electrical parts and consume almost no electricity, unlike conventional mechanical biological treatment plants. The total annual cost of electricity consumed by the Hostětín root treatment plant in 2006 was only about CZK 1 700. In the case of mechanical-biological treatment, on the other hand, this would be tens of thousands of crowns. Suns for the White Carpathians Self-help solar systems for domestic hot water heating began to appear in Hostětín and other White Carpathian settlements thanks to the Veronica ZO ČSOP Sun for the White Carpathians programme, using the support of the Partnership Foundation and later the British Know How Fund. During its operation in 1997-2001, solar systems were installed on a total of 45 public and residential buildings. The installation of the modular solar system involved the future user under the supervision of trained staff. Using both the modular system and the future user's own labour, the system was half the cost of comparably efficient technologies commonly available on the market. The production of thermal energy from renewable local sources makes a significant contribution to climate protection in addition to long-term financial savings for consumers and their greater independence from the grid. In fact, if the alternative to solar heating were an electric boiler, the carbon dioxide (CO2) savings of all forty-five installations can be estimated at almost 80 tonnes of this dangerous greenhouse gas. And that's no small amount. At the end of 2008, Veronica commissioned a small 8.8 kWp photovoltaic plant on the roof of the local cider house, which produces about as much energy per year as the cider house consumes. On the basis of this experience, the municipality of Hostětín is preparing a joint investment with three foundations (the Partnership Foundation, Veronica and the Czech Architecture Foundation) in a solar power plant with a capacity of around 70 kWp connected to the municipal heating plant. The production will again cover most of the annual electricity consumption of this facility. BIOMASS - TRADITIONAL AND ECOLOGICAL While wood was the main source of energy for heating in Hostětín and other similar rural communities in the White Carpathians until the mid-20th century, it has been gradually replaced by heat from fossil sources since the 1950s. Households were heated more by coal, and later by electricity, which in 1994, for example, meant that approximately 85 % of the energy used was fossil, i.e. non-renewable. The idea of building a wood waste heating plant in the village was thus a natural return to local sources of heat. A survey of residents' interest in joining the heating plant showed about 50 percent support from the local population. The final proportion of those actually connected to the heat distribution system was as high as 85 per cent. With the help of the Partnership Foundation and the Ecological Institute Veronica, it was possible to secure mostly international funding for the project as part of the implementation of the Framework Agreement on Climate Change. In addition to its significant contribution to the energy independence and security of the entire municipality, the specific contribution of the heating plant to climate protection as well as to supporting the local economy can be quantified. If the municipality of Hostětín were to be gasified, an educated guess is that at least CZK 1 million per year would go outside the region and partly outside the Czech Republic. In contrast, if biomass from the surrounding area is used, 90 % of this amount stays in the region. Moreover, this stimulates the local biomass market and thus economic development. Biomass has become a substitute for 585 MWh of electricity, 250 tonnes of lignite and 20 tonnes of hard coal per year. This has reduced air pollutant emissions - SO2 by more than 5 tonnes, CO by almost 10 tonnes and CO2 by as much as 1500 tonnes per year. VISITABILITY AND TRAFFIC The measures described above, combined with the projects of a cider house to process local fruit production, a passive building for the Veronica Seminar Centre and energy-efficient public lighting, have not only increased the self-sufficiency and sustainability of the village's development, but also the growth of its visitor numbers. Hostětín has become a sought-after centre for the study of sustainable technologies for heat and energy production, ecological construction and entrepreneurship, as well as a sustainable approach to local production and landscape. Already in 2001, nearly a thousand visitors visited the village for this purpose. However, this is nothing compared to the number of visitors in 2007, when the number increased fivefold.
The project's foundation of modularity, demountability and quality building materials allows for a significant extension of its life cycle. The priority is to maximise the use of prefabricated elements and therefore their easy replacement over time. Most of the interior elements can thus be easily replaced, including the walls. The assembly of modules can also be resized, as well as the entire building can be moved to another location. The Fashion Line structure consists of a self-supporting frame that is placed on ground screws. Compared to standard foundations, these screws dramatically minimize landscape intrusion and are easy to drill out and relocate the entire structure if necessary. The base structure is made of non-corrosive, galvanised steel, ensuring its durability, and is complemented by high quality fibreglass insulation.
In the field of circular buildings, cepezed is a pioneer in demountable structures. The former temporary district court in Amsterdam is a unique example in this context. After five years of use, the large two-storey building was dismantled and relocated in parts to be reassembled on another site. This is the first time in the Netherlands that this has been done for a large representative building of this kind. Moving the building from Amsterdam to Twente will save 2 000 tonnes of CO² emissions compared to the new construction in Kennispark. The building has a demountability index of 0.88 on a scale of zero to 1, which is unprecedentedly high.
In this new house, located below the cliff but close to the sea, the family lives in the main house and visitors, family and guests live in the apartment on the street corner. This project is located in a residential neighborhood that is undergoing a slight transformation, mixing mining houses with newer homes. It was built on a vacant corner lot with a southern slope where the view and sun meet. The response to this is a simple building volume that extends north-south, creating a larger area for outdoor living on the east side. To capture the sun, the west façade is formed by thick slats that open to the north and protect from the afternoon heat from the west. The east elevation continues to guide views and filter light through a covered, planted porch. The eastern openings and western slats with north-facing glazing follow the path of the sun throughout the day and tell the time. The main house and its hardwood siding relate to the tall woods and rocky cliffs in the backdrop of the escarpment, while its shell is clad in the ubiquitous FC siding. The materiality is influenced by both the landscape and the local traditional beach houses. The detailing is direct and simple and the choice of materials prioritises the lowest possible cost for the desired performance. Basic building materials were used as finished products - for example, pine laminated timber walls and recycled concrete landscaping walls. The project uniquely utilizes solar passive design principles and seeks to maximize green space on a very confined site. Vertical facades and boundary walls are designed to support climbing plants over time.
The pavilion represents the cutting edge of Czech modular architecture for which it was awarded the Bronze Medal for Architecture at EXPO 2015. The Czech pavilion demonstrated the sustainability of modular construction by relocating from Milan to Vizovice and changing the function of the modular building's use. The Czech Pavilion was a success at the World Expo and won several awards, such as the most comfortable pavilion, the most child-friendly pavilion or the pavilion with the most beautiful roof garden; the Czech Pavilion's restaurant was also among the top three. The biggest award for the Czech Pavilion was the third place for the best architecture from the International Bureau of Exhibitions (which organized EXPO), in the category of pavilions up to 2000 square meters.
The hotel complements a block of apartment buildings in central Vienna.The 50 rooms were constructed from solid wood elements in the assembly hall in just 68 days. In this time, the internal structures, furnishings and facade were also realised. They were then installed on site floor by floor. In addition to the precisely timed extension of the modules, the limited space on site and the short overnight time available for unloading the rooms posed a particular challenge. Here, a complete floor - i.e., nine rooms - was loaded into the appropriate floor each working night while floor-by-floor sealing was performed.
The Devil's Peak Residence is a project with 39 mostly large flats located on one of Libeň's hills. The project is prepared according to the international BREEAM methodology, which assesses the environmental impact of the project and its overall sustainability. It offers residents, for example, a system of environmentally friendly management of recycled water or photothermal panels for preheating hot water. The construction took two years and was completed at the turn of 2021/2022. The project is dominated by larger apartments with a layout of 3+kk or 4+kk. However, there are also two smaller flats 1+kk and three flats 5+kk with an area of more than 120 m² spread over the entire floor. The project is divided into six sections, which have three to four floors above ground. The individual sections are arranged in two almost parallel lines, between which there is an alley to a common relaxation garden. This is the first project in the world whose foundations and partitions are partly made of Rebetong. This 100% recycled concrete, developed by the Skanska and ERC-Tech team, uses suitably processed construction rubble instead of natural stone. Rebetong can also make use of brick rubble, a recycled material that has not yet found full use in the construction industry. 808 m3 of Rebetong was used for the construction of Devil's Peak, which covers approximately 20% of the total amount of concrete used on the site. As a result, almost 2 000 t of natural aggregate was saved. Recovering concrete has two main advantages: it reduces the use of virgin aggregate and its associated environmental costs of exploitation and transportation; and it reduces unnecessary landfill of valuable materials that can be recovered and redeployed. Recovering concrete, however, has no appreciable impact on reducing greenhouse gas emissions. In the product life cycle of concrete, the main source of carbon emissions is the cement production process (cement is added to aggregates to make concrete). The cement content in concrete cannot be viably separated and reused or recycled into new cement, and thus carbon reductions cannot be achieved by recycling concrete https://www.wbcsd.org/contentwbc/download/2410/29973. Use of grey and rainwater Čertův vršek is only the second Czech development project where residents use recycled grey water. In particular, it reduces drinking water consumption by up to a quarter. The innovative technology is located in the basement of the building and works by purifying the water from sinks, baths and showers in the utility room and returning it back into circulation for the purpose of flushing toilets. As part of water conservation, a storage tank has also been installed on site to capture rainwater, which is used by residents to water front gardens and shared gardens. The roofs of the home save energy Energy consumption is helped by photothermal panels that are located on the roof of one of the sections. The solar energy preheats the domestic hot water and saves up to 60% on average on gas consumption, boiler life and the environment. Extensive greenery is planted on the other roofs, which contributes to improving the microclimate of the site and captures almost 100% of rainfall. Thanks to the thorough insulation of the building envelope and high quality triple glazed windows, the project achieves a low energy standard with an Energy Performance Certificate B - very energy efficient. In addition, all residential units have heat recovery, which helps to maintain a pleasant and healthy indoor climate while reducing the cost of heating the room air. In line with the promotion of quality of life in cities, Skanska has also installed several elements to support biodiversity, such as a lizard pond, a beetle house, bat and titmouse boxes, green roofs and a compost heap.
TiCo (Timber Concrete) is a design solution for a flexible building system for the construction of new generation multi-storey, energy-efficient apartment buildings, synergistically exploiting the advantages of lightweight non-load-bearing timber-based structures and subtle load-bearing structures based on high-value concrete, making maximum use of precision prefabrication. Both main materials have their technological and physical limits, and TiCo addresses these. The use of timber as a structural material for the load-bearing structures of multi-storey buildings, while possible, is not advantageous - the structural design leads to larger cross-sections of structural elements that take up more space in the floor plan layout, and also leads to high cross-sections of floor-bearing elements that imply higher structural heights than would be necessary and optimal. Another problem is the greater deformability of the timber structure due to the low modulus of elasticity of the timber, which can often result in failures of downstream structures (cracks in partitions, envelopes, soffits and their surface layers). Acoustics is also a frequent problem due to the small surface mass of timber ceiling structures. For the above reasons, the use of reinforced concrete for the load-bearing part of the building was proposed. The high-value concrete skeleton brings the following strengths to the TiCo system: high load-bearing capacity long service life fire resistance advantageous acoustic properties in terms of soundproofing (air and noise) between the dwelling units through the ceiling structures advantageous thermal storage properties (potential of concrete ceiling structures for heat and cold storage) On the other hand, there are advantages of wood-based structures for the building cladding and internal partitions. These include: low weight low material intensity low carbon footprint low energy intensity of production excellent thermal insulation properties at low thickness
From the very beginning, the intention is to build the building in a passive standard, in European wood construction technology (shape optimization, layout designed so that all living rooms are oriented with glazing towards the south). The dominant axis running lengthwise through the house divides the layout into a living area (south) and a facilities area (north). Due to the planned development on the nearby land, the window on the west façade, which is also quite problematic in summer afternoons and evenings, was abandoned. The covered terrace and entrance provide screening to the house are complementary elements to the basic form of the building. The perimeter walls are timber, based on oak sills. A two-by-four system, where the inner part is load-bearing and the outer part is non-load-bearing (the façade system carries it out). This system defines the space for the thermal insulation to be placed in the thickness of the wall. 520mm (based on mineral wool, in the original plan straw insulation, for which the c-ce was prepared). The walls are anchored in pairs with wooden planks visually forming ladders. Inner brickwork made of sand-lime brick laid on foam glass; ceilings and rafters of wood. Roofing in epdm foil technology, vegetation layers for extensive greenery proposed. Perimeter cladding diffusely open, façade and roof ventilated, cladding of the house with larch planks with an acknowledged gap (anchored on double lathing); impregnated with wax and oil.
The 14-storey timber building stands in Bergen, Norway. At 52.8 m high, it is the tallest residential timber building in the world. Fire safety was a major issue in the project. The main load-bearing structure is made of cross-laminated timber (CLT) beams with a cross section of 12x20 cm and lengths of up to 20 m. The rectangular frames are reinforced with diagonals of the same material. On the two opposite façades, the structure is extended in front of the façade to the level of the glazed loggias. The project offers two types of flats: one-room flats of 43 m2 and two-room flats of 64-66 m2. For BOB, the Treet building is a pilot project for the industrialisation of the construction process. The aim was to use the highest possible degree of prefabrication, both in the case of the building modules inserted into the supporting structure and in the case of the supporting structure itself. The floor coverings, wall linings in corridors, staircases and the elevator shaft were also prefabricated. This high level of prefabrication significantly reduced the construction time.
The DEKWOOD wooden production hall in Helvíkovy near Žamberk is designed for two CNC machines for processing wooden elements and has a floor plan of 25 x 46 m. It consists of a three-joint truss with a wooden beam on columns woven into the foundation structure. The whole structure is made of BSH glulam timbers with a total of 130 pieces and the envelope will be made of PUR panels. The original design was for both steel and reinforced concrete construction. After comparing all the options, the timber construction of the hall proved to be the most efficient in terms of both financial costs and time of installation. The proposed wooden tie rods are an absolute specialty.
The temporary role of the offered space of the Modřany Sugar Factory brownfield, named Cukrkandl, was to be a universal meeting place for communities and their sports, social and other activities. The project of the park playground was created through the participation of the residents, and recycled concrete was used for its construction. The Czech patent on which Skanska Rebetong is based has the potential to revolutionise the construction industry on a global level. The material has similar properties to concrete, but instead of using natural aggregate, it uses construction rubble thanks to nano-mixing. The new technology, which Skanska is the first company in the world to use, makes it possible to use the material to build new structures at the end of their useful life.
HoHo Wien, currently under construction in aspern Die Seestadt Wiens, is not only a new commercial property, but also a strong manifesto for innovation and sustainability. With a height of 84 metres and a total of 24 floors above ground, it was the tallest wooden high-rise building in the world on the day it opened (2019). It is located directly on the waterfront and next to the Seestadt underground station. HoHo Wien offers a variety of different uses, from a hotel, restaurant, fitness/beauty/wellness facility to offices and conference rooms as well as 24 apartments. Timber: The "simple" structural system consists of four prefabricated series structural elements (studs, beams, ceiling and façade elements). Its special features are the drastically reduced use of steel fasteners and the high degree of prefabrication made possible by the use of newly developed timber-concrete joints. The walls and beams are 100% made of Austrian spruce wood. The ceiling is implemented as a wood-concrete composite ceiling. From the third floor upwards, fibre cement boards made entirely from natural resources are used on the facade of the building.
The first energy-plus family house in the Czech Republic was built in the Komín district of Brno. This wooden building is unique in that it can produce more energy than it consumes and shows the way forward for passive houses towards self-sufficiency. It is a multi-generational house with two apartments that can be used in the future for elderly parents when they can no longer function independently. In order for the house to be energy positive, consumption had to be minimized while optimizing resources. On the south side of the roof there is a photovoltaic power plant used to heat water in the summer, run electrical appliances or charge electric bikes and an electric car. A pellet boiler connected to a storage tank is used to heat the house and heat water in winter (2-3 months of the year). Ventilation in the house is provided by a heat recovery unit with a CO2 sensor. For flushing all toilets and washing the owners use rainwater, which is collected year-round in an underground tank of 7 m³. Rainwater is also used to water the adjacent garden. During the construction of the house, ecological materials were used - mainly wood (solid Czech Novatop panels with a thickness of 6 and 8 cm). The house is insulated with wood-fibre insulation and has windows with triple insulating glass. The facade facing the garden will be covered with climbers in a few years.
The LIFE Cycle Habitation* demonstration project shows innovative building concepts that significantly reduce CO2 emissions and reduce the consumption of energy and other resources throughout the life cycle. Prototypes of carbon-neutral and life-cycle oriented residential buildings have been designed and constructed, making energy-efficient housing the standard of tomorrow in line with the EU 2020 targets. To this end, the St. Petersburg region has been given a new energy-efficient building project. For this purpose, a building complex consisting of eight residential units and a community centre in the form of straw bale buildings of various innovative construction types (load-bearing and prefabricated modular structures) was built in St. Pölten (Lower Austria) and supplied by a highly innovative energy supply system. The electricity consumption has thus been reduced by about 80% and the entire village is supplied with energy from renewable sources.LIFE Cycle Habitation is carbon neutral throughout its entire life cycle. Innovative buildings and technologies can be tried out in the form of trial housing, which will ensure wide awareness and promotion. Passive house components, optimised building technology, efficient terminal equipment and optimal use of regionally available, renewable raw materials for building materials are combined in an innovative way. This means that both the energy required to produce the materials and components and the transport routes involved can be reduced to a minimum. From the outset, the concept of dismantling is also taken into account in the planning, so that individual materials can be returned to the material cycle even after the use phase and waste is largely avoided. To protect the facades from the weather, the roofs of both houses protrude significantly. This not only results in good protection against rain and snow and a correspondingly longer lifetime for the facades, but also gives the houses an extraordinary architectural effect.
With its traditional and unconventional form, the house resembles a straw stack in the landscape covered with a hi-tech roof structure. The house in a fur coat is built near the town of Mladá Boleslav. The author of the house respects the small scale of the surrounding buildings. It was created in connection with the nearby construction of a residential complex of ecological houses. Petr Suske refers to a straw stack in the landscape as a source of inspiration. A hi-tech house using traditional natural materials such as wood, straw, unburnt brick. The cost of building the house was low. Energy-wise, according to the author's report, the house was designed to be almost zero energy. In the heating season, the house was to be heated with a local wood stove. At the owner's request, a gas boiler was also installed. The interior, with the exception of the guest room and bedroom, is left as a continuous space. On the ground floor there is a kitchen with dining area and a living room. Upstairs is the rest area: bedroom, bathroom and study. "The load-bearing skeleton consists of a wooden frame and a brick core. The wooden structure is enclosed by a fifteen-centimetre wall made of unfired bricks, which creates accumulation and has a positive effect on the microclimate inside. The outer layer of thermal insulation on the envelope - separated from the clay wall by a vapour barrier - is made of straw bales, chemically treated against burning. A hi-tech 'umbrella', i.e. a textile fabric on a metal structural base which acts as a roof, can be described as an unusual construction.
In Jičínská Street, a completely new tree plantation of 14 trees has been created on 260 m2. The site extends between the waterworks embankments. The planting was created on the site of the original wide pavement, which was narrowed. The plantings in both areas are protected by low fencing and complemented by information panels. Together, they provide space for 3,768 perennials and 8,663 bulbs. The use of gravel as a mulching material makes the beds low-maintenance (weeding) as it effectively prevents weeds from spreading. Gravel also has a large capacity and can hold more water than a conventional substrate. In addition, plants planted along the roadside can reduce dust in the street. The whole planting also has an ecological benefit.
The architects describe the project as a formerly raped house, a former farmhouse that was converted into a granary during the previous regime. Even this truncated house, one might say abstracted, has lost none of its grandeur. The way it is situated, the way it rises to the sky and the way its raw mass resists time have proved to be its greatest qualities. They proposed to gut the house again and return it to two floors instead of three, and with them its original scale. This also entails a return to the original division of the facade. According to the needs of the layout, additional large openings were opened without sentiment where needed. A new insulated house was built into the existing ruin setting, allowing it to meet current energy standards. Healthy second-hand timber structures were reused again as structural elements in the ceilings and replacements in the trusses. The house combines the low and the high. It has now acquired another contemporary layer that differs in purpose from all the previous ones. A ventilated gap is maintained between the new and the original structure; the structures do not touch. The new structure is slightly offset in places relative to the old. The windows do not exactly fit the openings in the old wall and it happens that the old wall is present in the interior as a result. There is a visual blending of the two worlds. The new building looks out through the openings in the old wall, while the old wall comes in through the new windows. The project is a manifesto of how old houses can be treated. It is not necessarily necessary to lose the authenticity of age, it is not necessarily necessary to demolish, but neither is it necessary to reconstruct in a dogmatic conservationist way. At the same time, even in such a case, it is possible to build economically using contemporary materials and achieving the required parameters. The garden has been designed to become a natural part of the landscape without clear boundaries. The orchard, the meadow lawn and the hills are only "borrowed" from the immediate surroundings.
Residential buildings made of wood, insulated with straw, set new standards for regenerative and cycle-oriented residential construction in Austria and the EU. "GrAT" as an external unit of the technical university sets new benchmarks in research and sustainability. The demonstration building complex consists of a two-storey apartment building with six housing units, as well as a community centre and a semi-detached house with two housing units. is the entire life cycle of CO2-neutral construction methods. The aim is to use technology as a means to optimally arrange human needs without destroying the environment. Prefabricated wooden modules have led to a significant reduction in construction time, shorter transport routes and less waste on site. Over the next few years, the buildings will be monitored to show how much energy is actually being used.
The Holland Park Steamed Earth Eco Centre was built by a team with minimal experience but maximum enthusiasm in 10 days in sub-zero temperatures. The material was brought to the site ready in bulk bags. The team had to batch load the material into a mixer with water to achieve the correct moisture content, and then use a scoop and rake to transport it to the formwork.
The historic carriage house wall was retained and a new, modern building was built on top of it. In addition, the old chimney and historic clock that were part of the original carriage house were retained and restored, which then became part of the building's lobby. Other industrial architectural features include a second façade cladding of tachocrete and exposed concrete on the interiors and exposed plumbing on the ceilings. The building's lobby also features street art by Jakub Matuška aka Masker. Part of the roof has been converted into a tenant terrace, which overlooks Smíchov, the railway bridge over the Vltava River and Vyšehrad.
The hut was a collaboration between the architects and their artist friends. The architects describe their concept as a "box", a rational building matrix executed in a 2´´ by 4´´ structural system. The finishing of the windows, doors and interior from found "readymades" by the Černický couple gives the joint work a unique artistic overlap and atmosphere. The tiny cottage in the garden colony is actually a contemporary late-modern interpretation of the Gesamtkunstwerk phenomenon. It is the result of a unique combination of architecture and fine art, without which it could not have been created. On the ground floor of the cottage there is a living room, sauna and small facilities. Upstairs there is a gallery overlooking the garden and children's cabins above the facilities along the north wall. The space is open to the full height of the cottage, with the patchwork of recycled windows in the glass walls coming out beautifully. The viewing gallery leads out to the south verandah above the covered porch of the cottage.
The elongated residential building forms a transition between the busy street and the quiet cemetery, making direct reference to the urban context. The historic cemetery wall is also incorporated into the overall appearance, behind which lies the core area of the residential block. The residential design is consistently constructed of solid timber, including the staircase and lift shafts. The external walls are of timber frame construction. Only the staircase and fire walls are reinforced concrete. Due to the cross-wall construction method, the floor plans are column-free and therefore very flexible. Wood is used not only in the building structure but also in the interior and on the façade. The façade facing the cemetery grounds is clad in untreated larch planks. In the interior, the unlined material comes into its own, where the fire protection requirements have been creatively addressed by sizing all the timber elements according to their burning times, thus avoiding the need for fire lining. Summer cooling and winter heating are provided by geothermal piles. Walden48 combines different approaches to sustainable construction: a participatory planning process, the consistent use of wood as a renewable resource and the concept of sustainable energy.
The Mercury building will become Mercury. The former brutalist foreign trade enterprise of Czechoslovakia will disappear to make way for Mercury - the first office building in the Czech Republic that already fulfils the principles of the circular economy. In fact, Skanska has taken an approach that is unique in the Czech Republic and the CEE region; the gentle deconstruction and demolition of the building in order to return as much material as possible to circulation. The building is gradually being dismantled according to the types of building materials, which will then allow 80% of them to be reused, reprocessed or recycled. These procedures, where REmolize takes place instead of demolition, will save up to 12,000 tonnes of concrete. Some of it will be used directly for the new Mercury building, while some will be used in other Skanska projects. The reuse of building materials and the substitution of primary raw materials makes sense not only from a circular economy perspective. It is absolutely essential for reducing greenhouse gas emissions and is one of the principles that the construction sector will have to fulfil. However, sustainable demolition doesn't just stop at materials (reusing furnishings and interior elements is the preferred option over recycling from a circular economy perspective).Kitchens from Mercurio have been used to furnish apartments for refugees, doors have been donated to the Bulovka Hospital and other equipment has gone to reuse centres, such as Art REuse, where the equipment goes into the hands of artists. The architecture of the new building respects the character of Holešovice with its long industrial history. The U-shaped building is graduated in height and, together with the passages, does not create barriers in the area, but is completely permeable. The entire site in the northern part of the Holešovice meander will be reclaimed. The central idea behind the design was to complete the urban block and create a piazetta within the block, where public life will take place. The building will thus fit into the environment of the district, which has gradually become one of Prague's cultural and social centres from a former industrial part of the capital. The design, which has been developed with the environment and working environment in mind, features 20,000 m2 of office and retail space, employee facilities, a catering operation, and a luxurious entrance lobby. It includes the construction of pleasant communication spaces, relaxing residence roofs for employees with varied use options - community garden, relaxation zones, outdoor kitchen. Future tenants of Mercury will also be able to use a large public park with a promenade on the Vltava embankment, which will be part of the Port7 project. The study, carried out by ThinkCo in collaboration with partners including Skanska, JW+A and Revive, says that the so-called circularity gap - the percentage of non-renewable resources remaining outside the closed recycling cycle - is 92.8% globally. At the same time, we are consuming 1.6 times more resources than the planet's regenerative capacity allows. The vast majority of buildings in the European Union do not meet the criteria for sustainable construction, together accounting for almost 40% of all energy consumption. The report highlights a new shift in the renovation and retrofitting of buildings. It explains the three main strategies that will dominate the market in the coming years. The adaptation strategy consists of changing the function of a building to another, which involves transforming its structure and equipment. This may mean, for example, converting older or obsolete office buildings into apartments or transforming post-industrial buildings into shopping or cultural centres or office space. An expansive strategy is the expansion of a building's use by thoughtfully adding new space, either next to, above, or below the original structure. With a proactive strategy, the building continues to be used while preventive measures such as upgrades, implementation of new technologies and targeted repairs to problem areas are undertaken to ensure that the building does not lose its functionality. https://odpady-online.cz/v-prazskych-holesovicich-jde-k-zemi-kancelarska-budova-mercuria-za-principu-udrzitelnosti/
Panattoni Park Ostrov North was created by revitalising the site of the Škoda Ostrov plant, one of the largest brownfield sites in the Czech Republic. During the remediation, 12,700 tonnes of hazardous waste were allocated for environmental disposal on site, depending on the type of contamination. During the revitalisation of the Ostrov site, Panattoni managed to sort and recycle a record 98.7% of the demolition waste, which did not have to be taken to landfill. During the construction of the industrial zone, 103,000 tonnes of recyclate were reused to replace primary natural raw materials. This saved approximately 10,300 lorries from travelling off-site. An investment of CZK 5 million also went towards the construction of a cycle path around the industrial park. The building materials used and the implementation of the latest technologies ensure that the buildings on the site aspire to one of the highest sustainability certification awards under BREEAM New Construction, namely the Excellent level. The construction of the second hall is currently underway in the industrial park.
Bond Bryan's design for the David Hockney Building responded to the client's requirement for a ground-breaking building that would support innovative forms of teaching and learning. To achieve this, and to ensure long-term flexibility, a series of dynamic interlocking open floor plates were created within a simple exposed concrete frame. The result is a multi-level open collaborative space for student-centred learning with dedicated cellular learning zones around the perimeter. Inaugurated in September 2014, the building was also recognised for its innovative use of BIM, which should enable subsequent deconstruction and reuse of materials at the end of the building's life.
The office building forms the termination of an axial street running through the entire district along the foot of Vitkov, it is located at the interface of the development of orthogonal blocks and blocks with diagonal geometry with the dominant school on Lyckova Square, with which it harmonizes, and as one of the few new office buildings it enjoys a convenient location in close proximity and the majesty of the green of Vitkov Hill. The building is connected to it by four thematic gardens - north (winter), south (summer), east (spring) and west (autumn). The aim was to make the building energy efficient and to ensure that its operational aspect and comfort are supported by its ecological quality. The geometry and orientation of the AFI Karlín Butterfly building undoubtedly contributes to the reduction of heat gains, as only a small percentage of the surfaces are directly facing south or west. Furthermore, the facades are covered with automatic textile shading, insulating vertical gardens and high quality triple glazing, which serve to reduce heat gains/losses and thus reduce operating costs. Recycled rainwater is used to irrigate the vertical gardens, captured in a tank below the entrance area. Natural ventilation is via insulated metal ventilation panels located in approximately every second office module (2.7 m). The most important environmental factor of this commercial office building, apart from its orientation and a suitably designed envelope, is the IBM or IBS computer controlled heating, cooling, ventilation and lighting system. This sophisticated control system monitors year-round and automatically adjusts the building's energy consumption according to outdoor conditions and indoor needs. Native or locally common plant species that require little or no irrigation were carefully selected for the park landscaping. In addition, recycling of rainwater and its use as grey water for irrigation or fountains was proposed.
"LIKO-Vo - the world's first living production hall The LIKO-Vo living hall, covered with dozens of species of plants, builds on its predecessor Liko-Noe and seeks to inspire other investors and architects to be environmentally friendly, not only in cities but also in industrial construction, which is primarily oriented towards quick profits and behaves vulgarly towards the landscape. While conventional halls clad in standard materials heat their surroundings to temperatures of up to 80 °C, a living hall can reduce radiant heat and cool its surroundings by up to 10 °C. According to company director Libor Musil, living buildings can help with the issue of heat islands and the drying out of landscapes that are on the brink of sustainability.It is gradually transforming its manufacturing site into Industrial Area 21. century, which in the first phase included planting trees and climbing greenery that function as a kind of natural air conditioning units, today we find grassy parking areas, green roofs and facades, root sewage treatment plants and retention ponds, photovoltaics... In addition, all residual areas in the area are richly planted with greenery, they even pre-grow the plants themselves. The building, which serves as a production hall for metal production and a background for finishing, is connected to the existing production hall in plan and is designed as a single-storey building without a basement. In the southern part, there is a two-storey building with offices, changing rooms and sanitary facilities on the ground floor and offices, meeting room and employees' day room on the first floor. The building has an irregular floor plan of 41.5 × 26.4 m and is roofed with a combination of grey and flat roofs to ensure sufficient lighting of the internal spaces, with the roof plane above the building being pitched to form a sloping green roof, accessible via an external staircase. The south façade, where the staff terrace is oriented, is formed by climbing greenery on stainless steel nets. The eastern openwork façade is clad in vertical beds, which partly act as a root treatment plant. Through the folds in the façade, filtered light flows into the interior greenery, and living greenery is also used inside the lobby. On the northern side, there is a statically independent shelter for dispatching, whose northern facade is also made up of climbing greenery.The concept of living buildings is based on natural thermal stabilisation, which is provided by the green roof and facade, a retention pond and other technologies, thanks to which they can - unlike conventional indoor buildings - cool not only themselves but also their surroundings. In addition to the obvious aesthetic and thermal insulation benefits, the green areas also act as a root treatment plant for wastewater, which is naturally treated and used for irrigation."
The form of the designed house is mostly determined by the shape, profile and orientation of the plot. Its minimum width, the high steepness of the slope and the orientation to the north determine the basic shape parameters of the building. The house is therefore designed on a narrow rectangular plan that honours the prevailing street line on the north side and the setbacks from the neighbouring buildings. The remainder of the upper mass continues with a flat roof. The roof is green throughout and visually transitions into a rising garden. Two asymmetrically placed window openings of the children's rooms and the living area are cut into the green roof area. The supporting structures of the house are made of reinforced concrete and steel. The facade cladding is made of black aluminium sheets. The windows throughout the house are made of aluminium frames, the side wall of the internal staircase is composed of milky profile glass. The composition of the green roof is composed of several layers of drainage, filtration and protection membranes. The house is heated by a ground-water heat pump, has internal hot-air ventilation with heat recovery.
ČSOB completed construction of an expanded headquarters in Prague's Radlice district in 2019. It symbolises everything that characterises a modern employer today - innovation, a flexible working environment and a responsible approach to society with an emphasis on sustainability and ecology. The new building follows the relief of the hillside in which it is located and, thanks to the materials used and the roof greenery, blends in perfectly with its surroundings. Especially unique is the heating and cooling solution using an extensive system of heat pumps. The building thus does not need a conventional boiler room. The complex manages drinking water in a sustainable way, mainly through the use of rainwater.
An extensive bed that does not need to be irrigated and that flowers throughout the growing season. The garden is located in Italská Street in Prague near Riegrovy Sady. Not long after its realization, it has already become one of the distinctive points in the neighborhood thanks to its year-round effect. The perennial mix is inspired by the German Feuer und Flamme® (translated as fire and flame) and is characterised by its colour combination - fiery colours from yellow through orange and red to rusty brown. The mixture has not yet been tested in the Czech Republic. Daffodils and tulips open their season in the bed from March. In May, they are gradually replaced by primroses and cacosts, which gradually give way to most flowering plants as summer approaches. By the end of September and early October, the composition is dominated by the flowers of primroses, weeds, cocklebur, and showy grasses, which remain together, especially with the stitchwort and yarrow, as dry structures throughout the winter period. The extensive perennial bed is a trend of recent years, which mainly reflects the need to minimise the cost of maintaining the greenery. Such a bed is not irrigated, dry plant parts do not have to be removed, the soil hoed or tied to a support. The result is a slightly wilder look. But this does not mean that maintenance can be neglected altogether. It is necessary to correct, for example, the competitive relationships between plants in the coming years so that the more vigorous species do not crowd out the weaker ones.
The park combines the benefits of a green oasis as opposed to a harsh environment and the practicality of a solid plaza as a gathering space, which it achieves through verticality. In a design that could be called "multidisciplinary", Burckhardt + Partner AG and Raderschall Landschaftsarchitekten AG have created a multi-storey structure covered in vines. Located in the Neu-Oerlikon district of Zurich, the park's structurally expressive design harkens back to the area's industrial past while acting as an armature of plants reaching for the sky. Two parallel, multi-level buildings define the long sides of the rectangular open space. One end of the short side is enclosed by a structure connecting the long sides, with the last side open to the street and inviting people into the open but sheltered space. Visitors enter the structure via stairs that lead to a sun deck, loggias and cantilevered overlooks that provide views of the space below. On this lowest level are benches, pools and the beginning of vines connecting to ropes that taper to a conical shape towards the roof. Depending on the time of year one visits, the plant 'walls' are sparse, full or varied. To help with the vertical coverage of the structure, water is collected for irrigation, a raised trench allows for a second level of vines, and the integration of the structure and vines is treated so that the latter does not damage the integrity of the former.
The largest green façade in Europe forms a fundamental element of the Kö-Bogen II commercial and office building. This ensemble represents the final project in the regeneration of Düsseldorf city centre. It also represents a paradigm shift: from an urban planning perspective, it signals a move away from the automobile era and a turn towards people-oriented planning. With the largest green façade in Europe, it offers a response to climate change and the creation of a new green heart for Düsseldorf. Where the deserted motorway originally dominated, the Hofgarten has now returned to the city centre. The sloping green facades of the Kö-Bogen are set against each other in a composition inspired by land art. The abr was deliberately chosen as a native deciduous tree species that retains its leaves even in winter. In collaboration with Prof. Karl-Heinz Strauch of the Berlin Technical University BHT, a comprehensive phytotechnological concept was developed to integrate the hedge into the building. The greenery improves not only the microclimate in the building, but of the entire urban environment - it protects from the sun's rays in summer and reduces the heat in the city, binds carbon dioxide, stores moisture, reduces noise and promotes biodiversity. The ecological benefits of hornbeam hedges are equivalent to approximately 80 full-grown deciduous trees. Incorporating natural elements into architecture offers a response to contemporary climate change.
The extension of the Ombudsman's Office in Brno was able to implement a living green facade in 2019, which can be an inspiring example of improving the environment in the city, cooling the building and urban heat islands. The system is based on polypropylene panels and geotextiles. Plants are planted in pockets with basalt wool. The installation includes drip irrigation, but the wall is primarily irrigated by rainwater from the roof of the building, accumulated in a tank. In the dry season, it is subsidized by the row. Fertilisation is provided by drip irrigation. Two walls of the building, the west and north walls, are planted, and the institution's logo is created on the street facade using plants. The extension itself has become a natural transition between the older functionalist building and the urban greenery that has been implemented on the neighbouring plot. The structure has a reinforced concrete back slab with footings under the columns and vertical reinforced concrete perimeter walls. The vertical load-bearing and non-load-bearing masonry is mainly made of ceramic blocks or partition walls. The green roofs also contribute to water retention. Ensuring a good indoor microclimate was also an important part of the design. Clay interior plaster was therefore implemented, which as a purely natural material has the ability to maintain a balanced relative humidity in the room.
The Stone Square, which had few trees and was hardly shaded in summer by residents or visitors, will be greener in the future thanks to the reconstruction, as the city has had new trees planted there. Some of the trees have been replaced by new ones that will be better suited to the location and the specific conditions of the square. In order for the trees to thrive and be able to be put into the paving, a special technology was used whereby the trees put down roots between the rough stones and the substrate. This is cutting edge technology that does not, for example, lift the pavement. A total of fourteen maples and a lime tree were planted. This means that there are ten more trees in the square than before the reconstruction. In addition, the greenery has also been supplemented with 32 large-volume planters with perennials and another 35 hanging planters. The square has also added a drinking fountain and a misting fountain to make the sultry summer days more pleasant with water mist, as well as children's features.
The main intention of the project and the design of the solution was to connect the entire public space around the National Museum with the city centre, to make it more transparent and to create a place that will be appropriate in its character and the long-term sustainability of the proposed measures. From a landscape point of view, the habitat conditions were changed literally in every square metre. It has succeeded in eliminating or at least mitigating sources of civilisational stress for trees, which are also needed in the centre of a large city because of the heat island syndrome. The retention capacity of all paved areas has also been improved, providing protection from drought and heavy rainfall.All paved areas between the National Museum buildings and in the Chelakovsky Gardens are paved, with permeable joints and a base for active rainwater harvesting. There are 1 cm gaps between the large paving stones. For newly planted trees, the gap between the narrower pavers is larger (3.5 cm) to allow good water drainage even to the edges of the trees (up to 1000 l/6 min/2 m²). The joints are a combination of two fractions of gravel and granite wedges, which help to spread the load without limiting seepage. For soft areas, the designers were careful to protect and mitigate soil compaction. Among other things, the clear delineation of the grass areas into view (protected by a low fence), residence and dog meadow helped. The authors of the landscape concept ensured that the park had a variety of trees and shrubs in terms of age and species, while at the same time not undermining the conservation and heritage objectives. The park now contains 182 trees in 21 species, approximately 100 shrubs and 100,000 plants. Among them, we can find plants that tolerate drought well, historical assortments (e.g. lilacs, tulips or Prague thorn tree), protected species (gentian tolithous, ladoña) and even species that are extinct in our country (e.g. grey starflower). Challenges included, for example, the preservation and replanting of 144 native yew trees, which are, however, very well adapted to the local conditions in the centre. Promoting green space Because of the underground structures, utilities and other urban interventions, it was necessary to see the park as 'green by design' and to change the character of the soil profiles to make it more airy and work better with water. Six trees were planted in root cells in areas of extreme network crossing and high vibration from rail traffic. The park also has one plane tree growing in pavement with a trellis planted in structural substrate with root paths under the pavement to adjacent flower beds and lawn. To prevent soil compaction, arborist staff used a supersonic spade (AirSpade) to liquefy the soil for selected trees. A probe to diagnose the need for water with the possibility of supplementary watering, which saved one of the cranesbills from drying out, or metal protection of tree trunks from contamination by dog urine and hoeing, also proved successful. All but one of the trees (probably an internal defect from the nursery) have taken hold and have satisfactory vigour. The sycamores, mahaleb trees, sycamore trees and the newly established avenue of Prague thorn trees which replaced the felled lime avenue are all doing very well. The crowns of the thorn trees have already exceeded the original 50-year-old lime trees in crown volume.
The perennial bed in the central green belt in Church Street was established in 2009. However, after eleven growing seasons, due to inappropriate plant composition and heavy overcrowding due to inadequate selection of the more vigorous species when it was established, it ceased to fulfil its function. The Church Street bed was restored in 2022 as a mixed bed with a year-round impressive and species-rich "wild" appearance. The bed has been linearly planted with nine young cranesbills (Sophora japonica) since 2009, so the bed reconstruction project also addresses improving the conditions for their growth by building rootable paths and bringing the roots of the trees to a greater depth.
On the site of the former barracks in Munich-Bogenhausen, Europe's largest contiguous model district of timber buildings, Prinz-Eugen-Quartier, has been created. The Quartier consists of a diverse mix of different residential building typologies. It includes the project "Der kleine Prinz" by the Munich office of Dressler Mayerhofer Rössler Architekten und Stadtplaner with 24 atrium houses and two solitary houses in timber construction. The residential development is complemented by community outdoor spaces as well as indoor spaces such as work spaces. Landscape-architectural concepts of green space extend beyond the boundaries of individual building plots within the neighbourhood, where effective typologies have been created to allow for different types of housing. Buildings are conceived as 'empty shells' within which residents can design the space to suit their needs and later conversion is possible without problems. Prinz-Eugen-Quartier presents sustainable construction as a holistic concept that includes both structural and socio-economic aspects.
Ellener Hof is a new neighbourhood in Bremen with up to 500 apartments designed for a diverse and inclusive community. The plan for the neighbourhood was developed by ZRS in collaboration with two other design firms to implement low-car infrastructure, social mixing and sustainable construction. The public common spaces connecting the neighborhood are intended to ensure a healthy and social quality of residence for residents and conditions for an intact system of biodiverse nature. The two wooden buildings planned by ZRS contain nine apartments and a day centre. The staircase and elevator cores could be constructed of solid wood. Concrete is used only in the floor slab and in the wood-concrete hybrid ceilings. To save space, investment, maintenance and life cycle costs, almost no additional construction technologies were needed. The indoor climate in the nursery is controlled by clay plaster on the interior walls. The pre-assembled façade is clad in varnished spruce wood and is made to last without heavy maintenance. Rainwater is collected in retention boxes on the extensive green roofs of the buildings to allow for seepage.
In 2008, a green wall of more than 500 m^2 was built on the Max Juvenal side of the bridge using a hydroponic irrigation system. Designed by Patrick Blanc, a French botanist and pioneer in the development of green walls, it is considered "an authentic work of art that evolves over time and seasons and contributes to the 'renaturation' of urban space". The wall is intended to illustrate the benefits that green walls can bring to the environment, such as the reduction of heat islands in urban areas and their contribution to cleaner air through oxygen production and reduced CO2 levels through photosynthesis.
Rosendal's Vårdsätravägen is an example of a street that is aesthetic and enhances its ecological value. It features a continuous strip of open base course that forms the basis of a BGG system that cleans and retains rainwater, supports vegetation while allowing for traffic loads and flexible design.
The façade is covered with a 1930s mosaic, which is protected by a conservation area. How to deal with this element so that it does not need to be insulated and yet does not leak heat? The mosaic gave the name to this exceptional hotel near Charles Square in Prague. The Mosaic House opened in this functionalist building in 2010 as the first ever Czech green hotel with a grey water and wastewater heat recovery system and operating with renewable energy sources.
The design includes rain gardens in the form of sunken beds with plants that can retain and purify rainwater on site. The placement of rain gardens slows traffic and increases street safety. Rain gardens are constructed on an open base layer that provides both a sufficient root zone for vegetation and the ability to retain rainwater for plant irrigation. Rain gardens
At first glance, the Botanica K apartment building in Prague's Jinonice district is not very different from the surrounding houses in this residential area. The difference lies in the way it manages drinking water. In most Czech households, so-called grey water, i.e. water from showers, sinks and bathtubs, flows into the sewer system without further use. The technologies used by Skanska in this house allow the reuse of grey water, especially for flushing toilets or even for watering plants. As a result, it is possible to save 26 per cent of normal drinking water consumption. A large amount of greenery has been planted in the project area, which gradually develops into a large natural and recreational park, ideal for active relaxation. Already in the first phase of the project, a bio-corridor of approximately 25,000m2 was built, which separates the area from the surrounding urban traffic in a pleasant and natural way.
Instead of a canal, the water from the roofs of the three blocks of flats ends up in a pond that dominates the centre of the green Park under the Sails. The project unusually solves the overloaded sewage system during heavy rains. By combining the water surface with greenery, the park also reduces the temperature in the overheated housing estate.
The narrow plot of land in a terraced development in Prague's Stary Butovice had no use until the owner of an architecture studio bought it and built an energy-efficient house on it using local materials, with a green roof and a tree planted in the inner courtyard. The proposal tried to use simple, traditional and logical adaptation measures to climate change, although some of them gave the impression of futility without real economic return in the years of preparation (2009-2012). The house responds to climate extremes such as heat waves, overheating, drought, and also addresses stormwater management and biodiversity support.
The logistics hall project delivers significant operational savings such as an 83.5% reduction in potable water waste through water management, advanced leak detection and the incorporation of rainwater harvesting. Energy consumption has also been reduced, by up to 54%. The building's offices are equipped with a heating system that is powered by its own floor heating pumps. The air conditioning recovers heat using a method known as heat recovery ventilation (HRV), which also contributes to the well-being of the employees.
A total of 11 apartment buildings with 652 flats, a kindergarten and a new shop will be built in the new residential area of Albatros Kbely over the next few years. The project aims to manage water efficiently, for example by using water-saving basin, shower and bath taps and dual flush toilets (which will reduce water consumption by 25% compared to standard consumption.) A system of landscaped depressions is used to retain rainwater and allow it to soak in naturally. Rainwater tanks will provide enough water to irrigate the common green areas.
The goal of the Gaštanice redevelopment is to stop the degradation of its ecosystem, restore and stabilize it, and create a green space for recreation in an urban environment. More than 60 chestnut trees (Gastanea sativa) used to grow in the park, but almost half of them have been attacked by the bark beetle caused by the parasitic fungus Cryphonectria parasitica. The primary restoration objective of the New Town Municipality is to rehabilitate and preserve the existing stand and treat it, as well as to implement new planting to prevent soil washout and erosion. The site is located in a sloping terrain, therefore measures to retain rainwater also consist of drainage strips built in the direction of the contours. Rainwater will thus be retained in the area and will not run off onto the surrounding roads and into the built-up area. The paved areas will be made of water-permeable concrete, which will help to reduce surface runoff, which, especially during extreme rainfall events, leads to water accumulation and problems with the sewerage system, which is unable to accommodate large amounts of water. The revitalisation also includes the creation of a rest and relaxation area with benches, a gazebo, a playground, fitness elements and a dog run. A nature trail with information boards should also be created in the park.
Panattoni Park Cheb South, which was developed on a brownfield site on the site of a former engineering plant, comprises six buildings, two of which have an Outstanding rating. During the redevelopment, 90% of construction and demolition waste was recycled and there is no shortage of rainwater flushing and energy savings. The building, occupied by German company AUTODOC, was rated Outstanding and achieved a record score of 94.2 per cent according to the prestigious BREEAM 2016 New Construction sustainability certification. Strict environmental measures were already in place during construction, with more than 85 percent of construction waste saved from landfill. Exposed parts of the building were designed to minimise the frequency of any replacements and all materials were selected with consideration for their environmental impact throughout their life cycle. The surrounding landscape is made up of native species of greenery, with an insect hotel, lizard habitat and nesting boxes for squirrels. Employees make use of an outdoor gym, a modern canteen, a relaxation area or an eco-friendly bus service. There are charging stations for electric cars and locking bike racks. The revitalisation of the brownfield site was covered by private funding.
In addition to telling the story of the memory of the place, the restoration of the village square, which used to be a pond, involves the innovative use of surfaces - from an embossed brick wall with an air-purifying nano-coating to the use of permeable clay on the walking surfaces.
The Kronsberg project has attracted attention as an important part of the Hannover EXPO initiative known as the "Ecological Optimisation of Kronsberg". This comprehensive project demonstrates a commitment to sustainable urban development. The landscape design in particular is a remarkable illustration of this commitment, presenting an innovative stormwater management concept that not only solves ecological problems, but is also in line with the overall goal of promoting environmentally responsible urban spaces
The main intention of the project and the design of the solution was to connect the entire public space around the National Museum with the city centre, to clarify and create a place that will match its significance in terms of its character and the long-term sustainability of the proposed measures. From a landscape point of view, the habitat conditions were changed literally in every square metre. It has succeeded in eliminating or at least mitigating sources of civilisational stress for trees, which are also needed in the centre of a large city because of the heat island syndrome. The retention capacity of all paved areas has also been improved, providing protection from drought and heavy rainfall.All paved areas between the National Museum buildings and in the Chelakovsky Gardens are paved, with permeable joints and a base for active rainwater harvesting. There are 1 cm gaps between the large paving stones. For newly planted trees, the gap between the narrower pavers is larger (3.5 cm) to allow good water drainage even to the edges of the trees (up to 1000 l/6 min/2 m²). The joints are a combination of two fractions of gravel and granite wedges, which help to spread the load without limiting the drainage. For soft areas, the designers were careful to protect and mitigate soil compaction. Among other things, the clear delineation of the grass areas into view (protected by a low fence), residence and dog meadow helped. The authors of the landscape concept ensured that the park had a variety of trees and shrubs in terms of age and species, but at the same time did not undermine the conservation and heritage objectives. The park now contains 182 trees in 21 species, approximately 100 shrubs and 100,000 plants. Among them, we can find plants that tolerate drought well, historical assortments (e.g. lilacs, tulips or Prague thorn tree), protected species (gentian tolithous, ladoña) and even species that are extinct in our country (e.g. grey starwort). Challenges included, for example, the preservation and replanting of 144 native yew trees, which are, however, very well adapted to the local conditions in the centre. Promoting green space Because of the underground structures, utilities and other urban interventions, it was necessary to see the park as 'green by design' and to change the character of the soil profiles to make it more airy and work better with water. Six trees were planted in root cells in areas of extreme network crossing and high vibration from rail traffic. The park also has one plane tree growing in pavement with a trellis planted in structural substrate with root paths under the pavement to adjacent flower beds and lawn. To prevent soil compaction, arborist staff used a supersonic spade (AirSpade) to liquefy the soil for selected trees. A probe to diagnose water needs with the option of supplemental watering also proved successful, saving one of the cranesbills from drying out, or metal protection for tree trunks from contamination by dog urine and hoeing. All but one of the trees (probably an internal defect from the nursery) have taken hold and have satisfactory vigour. The sycamores, mahaleb trees, sycamore trees and the newly established avenue of Prague thorn trees which replaced the felled lime avenue are all doing very well. The crowns of the thorn trees have already exceeded the original 50-year-old lime trees in crown volume.
The building seeks to patch the urban wound that the Strahov Bridge has inflicted on the locality. The architects clearly wanted the building's volumetric and shape design to respond to the current centre of Smíchov at the site of the Zlatý Anděl (Golden Angel) and to continue smoothly along the urban axis starting at the Emmaus Church on the right bank of the Vltava. The forty-metre high building thus visually helps to cross the bridge that violently interrupts the district. The oval-shaped building with a glass façade and eight above-ground and three underground floors comprises approximately 7,000 m² of office space. It is a BREEAM Excellent certified energy efficient building. It includes a green roof terrace and an internal green atrium.
It is a small park, founded in the spirit of the blue-green infrastructure trend. The building is being implemented prior to the construction of residential buildings (currently underway), for which it will form a rainwater collection and retention area. A small water area has been designed for this purpose, which is sized so that even in very light summer rainfall it will not dry out and will be able to "flush" from the capacity of the roofs. It is a reinforced concrete bath with a high backfill of rubble stone (approx. 1.5m) to keep the water cool and therefore clean, as well as to maintain the water level effect and for safety at the entrance. The water from the reservoir overflows into the surrounding areas, which have a variety of surfaces ranging from shingle paving to gravel and a grassy polder, equipped with gravel whiskers. The park is set for a gradual successional development. At its start it is more a work of striking design, an intention to counteract the sense of emptiness at its foundation. Later, as the vegetation is conceived, the natural process will prevail. Stone rubble fields will become willow and sycamore, gravel areas will become succulent communities, modelling will become meadow. The striking architecture will grey and age and merge with the vegetation, which will gradually be shaped by the very type of surfaces and objects.
Praga Studios is an innovative and energy efficient building that uses significantly less energy and water than conventional office buildings. It incorporates a range of energy saving solutions to minimise the environmental footprint and significantly reduce operating costs. Upon completion, the building received a high rating under the international LEED environmental certification and was named the fourth greenest office building in the world in 2019. The building was preferably constructed using locally sourced, partially recycled materials with a small carbon footprint during transportation. Electricity savings of almost 50% and potable water savings of more than 40% of normal consumption. The new building has an atrium in its centre suitable for artistic performances (concerts, theatre performances and exhibitions). An orange piano is permanently placed in the centre of the atrium and is available to tenants and visitors to the building. Part of the roof is adapted as a terrace for tenants. Another, enclosed part of the roof houses beehives. The areas in which Praga Studios achieves results are mainly as follows: Eco-friendly materials are used throughout the building to create a healthy working environment. High quality and efficient LED lighting with occupancy and motion sensors to minimise energy consumption. A significant amount of potable water (approx. 30%) is saved through efficient fixtures. A high performance façade, sophisticated HVAC system, chilled beams, LED lights and energy recovery elevators reduce the building's energy consumption by 36%. Everyone is encouraged to use the advanced recycling system and proper waste separation including composting and metal sorting. All meeting rooms are equipped with CO2 sensors so you can be more efficient with more fresh air. Rainwater is collected on site and used to irrigate the garden and green roof.
In 2019, CSOB completed the construction of an expanded headquarters in Radlice, Prague. The new complex (SHQ) follows the relief of the hillside in which it is located, and thanks to the materials used and the roof greenery, it blends in perfectly with its surroundings. In design and concept, it follows the NHQ, which was created with a similar approach.
The municipality of Trojanovice is preparing the reconstruction of the recreation area of the Cocksar cottage. Housing for up to 20-25 households will be created in a modern apartment building and two-storey bungalows. The project is being prepared in a participatory manner. Residents are involved in the preparation process - they can influence the composition of the apartments, the use of common areas, the method of financing, and thus the final price. Above all, however, their preferences and interests influence who will build the housing and who will own and operate it.
The Parkview office building in Prague 4 is located at the interface between the contemporary centre of Pankrác Plain and the park on its western side. Together with the City Green Court and City Tower, it creates an intimate urban space of the square, open to the park. The building is U-shaped, the southern, eastern and western wings surround an internal atrium which forms the main entrance area at ground floor level, from which the commercial areas and especially the main circulation core of the building are accessible. The atrium includes recessed, wood-paneled seating surrounded by trees and an open wooden staircase to the 4th floor. The atrium also faces the two-storey galleries connecting the individual office wings. The building has three underground and nine above-ground floors. Parkview is a technologically innovative and energy efficient building that uses significantly less energy and water than conventional office buildings. It incorporates a range of energy-saving solutions to minimise its environmental footprint and significantly reduce operating costs. The areas in which Parkview is achieving results are mainly as follows: Eco-friendly materials are used throughout the building to create a healthy working environment. High quality and efficient LED lighting with occupancy and motion sensors to minimise energy consumption. A significant amount of potable water (approx. 30%) is saved through efficient fixtures. A high performance façade, sophisticated HVAC system, chilled beams, LED lights and energy recovery elevators reduce the building's energy consumption by 36%. Everyone is encouraged to use the advanced recycling system and proper waste separation including composting and metal sorting. All meeting rooms are equipped with CO2 sensors so you can be more efficient with more fresh air. Rainwater is collected on site and used to irrigate the garden and green roof.
Efficiency House Plus with electric mobility is the name of a federal government demonstration project to generate more useful energy than is needed for a family of four to operate the house and use two electric vehicles in one year. It serves as a research and model project within the "Future Construction" research initiative of the Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation, Building and Nuclear Safety (BMUB) and as an information and demonstration facility for Efficiency Houses Plus. The building was developed in collaboration with the Institute for Lightweight Structures, Design and Construction (ILEK) at the University of Stuttgart and architect Werner Sobek .
The kindergarten and primary school in Ostopovice is in many ways the centre of the village. There are about seventy children in the kindergarten and about one hundred pupils in the first stage of the primary school. It serves as a public playground, a nature garden, a meeting place for other organizations and for adult education. The green roof of the school, which also serves as an outdoor classroom, also contributes to the microclimate of the area.
The project for the insulation of the Children and Youth House in the conservation area of Český Krumlov was developed in cooperation with conservationists. In addition to insulation, the building, which had suffered a number of scratches in the past, was able to have its façade restored with historicizing details. In addition, it is the very first building in this South Bohemian town that could be insulated.As part of the reconstruction, important tectonic elements were returned to the façade, windows and entrance doors were replaced with wooden ones. The thermal insulation system can be considered the biggest challenge of the building, both from the point of view of conservation and because of its load of tectonic elements. No polystyrene was used for the reconstruction. Three of the four facades of the house were insulated using a mineral wool contact insulation system, while the street facade was reconstructed in masonry. Windows - in the main part of the building, the windows were designed to be fitted with pre-set windows in thermal insulation.
Sonnwendviertel is a modern neighbourhood in the southern part of Vienna that combines traditional elements with progressive design. Created with an emphasis on sustainable development, it offers a mix of residential complexes, commercial spaces and public areas. The architectural diversity and energy efficiency of the buildings, together with an extensive network of cycle paths and green spaces, create an environmentally friendly environment. Residents will find modern public services, shops and restaurants, and the district is not only a residential area but also a place for creativity, culture and meeting, with parks and public spaces as centres of social activity. The neighbourhood sets a new standard for modern urban living, emphasising respect for the environment and encouraging a diverse mix of residents.
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