What passive house inhabitants really think - neunerhaus Hagenmüllergasse

Daniela Unterholzer is CEO of "neunerhaus", an organisation which offers a home to homeless and handicapped people. Their newest building, the "neunerhaus" Hagenmüllergasse was constructed as a Passive House. Mrs. Unterholzer talks about their experience with the Passive House and the ventilation system especially. Subtitles are available in English, Spanish and German.She will open their Passive House at the International Passive House Days like hundreds of Passive House owners between 9th and

Piamonte, HQE certified social housing operation in Colombia

In the initial planning stages of Reserva de Madrid, a Low-Income Housing (LIH) Master Plan located in the outskirts of Bogota, Colombia, we in Prodesa came upon a big task.  How to develop, on a very limited budget, the best possible green project (LIH in Colombia has to be priced under US$35,000 per unit, to gain government subsidies). As a founding member of the Colombia Green Building Council, Prodesa has been very active in applying green building principles since 2008.  Our projects included

Renovating buildings to save energy

Photo-reporting from what used to be a run-down district in Valladolid, Spain, that has now become a model of sustainable living in cities   In the suburbs of Valladolid, a city in central Spain, a district is at the forefront of Europe's energy transition. With its 19 residential buildings and a single tower block, surrounded by a small park, it was built in the 1960s for employees of the car manufacturer FASA-Renault, which gave its name to the neighbourhood. The factory workers have long since

Greenox: Turkey’s first vertical forest

In the midst of Istanbul’s sprawling concrete jungle lies Turkey’s “first vertical forest.” With nine hundred trees climbing up its geometric façade, the 16-floor building towers over those around it, serving as an urban landmark for the growing green building trend. For residents of Istanbul, the project is known as Greenox, a play on the words “green” and “oxygen.” For others, it is home. Home Green Home As a resource-efficient building certified with EDGE, Greenox contains 170 residential units

Climathon 2018 will be the biggest global climate hackathon in history

Over 100 cities from around the world will join forces and take action on 26 October as part of EIT Climate-KIC’s Climathon – the award-winning 24-hour hackathon that unites students, entrepreneurs, big thinkers, technical experts and app developers in tackling the defining climate challenges of their cities. Teams hosted by city authorities, universities and NGOs from 106 cites including Berlin, Rio de Janeiro and Sydney will pull all-nighters to develop innovative solutions to local climate challenges

Innovative Heating & Cooling systemic packages and financial mechanisms for deep retrofitting of residential buildings in Europe

In the framework of the World Cities Day 2018, BuildHeat in collaboration with other 3 EU-funded like-minded projects invites you to discover innovative approaches, lessons learnt and results achieved in the retrofitting of multifamily houses at EU level. Learn about innovative energy efficiency measures but also financing mechanisms leveraging public and private investment to ensure future market uptake of the solutions. Join our webinar! www.buildheat.eu/world-cities-day-2018-webinar/

[Urban Chronicles #WellBeingAtWork] #07 - Biodiversity, new tool for well-being at work

As we have seen throughout season 3 of Urban Chronicles™, the layout of spaces influences well-being at work and therefore the productivity of all. Employees feel this impact on a daily basis. This trend is not about to stop since, according to a study by the ESSEC Real Estate and Sustainable Development Chair in 2013, 40% of students, and therefore potential future employees, would be willing to refuse a job offer if the workspaces do not meet their expectations. Among all these developments, the

BY&FORCITIZENS Conference: Citizens to play key role in making their cities greener and more sustainable

Across Europe citizens are being put centre stage in efforts to move towards a more sustainable and liveable built environment. How are EU-funded projects embracing this citizen engagement as they innovate? To answer this as fully as possible, a unique conference – BY&FORCITIZENS – took place in late September in Valladolid, Spain, co-organised by 5 major European urban renovation projects –R2CITIES , CITYFIED, MYSMARTLIFE, REMOURBAN and URBANGREENUP. At the conference, over 240 experts examined

Recycled construction waste: building a more sustainable future

The European construction industry is working towards producing high-quality materials from recycled waste, enhancing the sector’s sustainability and reducing its environmental impact. In the southern Belgian province of Namur, concrete and bricks from demolished buildings are being turned into eco-friendly road surfaces. A local company recycles 180,000 tonnes of concrete, tarmac, sand and mixed soils at its two plants, much of which is deployed to regenerate the region’s highways or to build new

New “Building Market Brief” initiative enables context-specific comparison of building stock data across countries in Europe

The building sector is in need of comparable, pan-European data. It is a pre-requisite for making the right decisions, setting standards and regulations, and preparing good quality business cases for investment. Up until now, this information has been incomplete and fragmented, hindering the uptake of new innovations and technologies. A new initiative from EIT Climate-KIC seeks to address this challenge by harmonising vast amounts of data from the European building stock. The aim is to enable the