Enlarging the Market for Low Consumption Commercial Buildings

The paper identifies some recent low consumption non-residential buildings around Europe, which have been operated for a while. The operational results (construction cost, energy consumption and costs, comfort and productivity) compared to the design performance will be presented, along with the technical solutions employed. The paper will discuss the original motivations of the investors, the building occupants and the architects, to create such advanced buildings, and explore whether their expectations have been fulfilled. In particular the paper shows that the traditional power of the architect to drive the game is still strong, but is becoming subordinate to the desires of the developer. Most importantly, it will summarise how architects and developers' experiences may affect their future decisions on other buildings.

BERTOLDI Paolo;  NEUMANN Werner;  GARFORTH Peter;  HINGE Adam; 

2005-12-13

ECEEE - European Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy

JRC30132

https://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/handle/JRC30132,