The most sustainable building in the world has been crowned. Who decides these kinds of things, you ask? The Building Research Establishment Environmental Assessment Methodology (BREAAM) has said an office building in Haelen, in the Netherlands, has won the award and scored 99.94 percent on their rankings.
Now you can change your offices accordingly so that it might compete for the most sustainable building of all time.
According to Gizmodo, the building has a solar power system that produces 50 percent more energy than the building consumes. The building is made from wood and was designed to deliver the best “daylight infiltration and air quality”.
Engineering and Technology Magazine said it has been made with the health of employees in mind. They spoke to Sander Geleen, managing director of Geleen Counterflow, she said, “So when we build a new office it only makes sense to respect these laws and limits of nature, too. This office another step on our journey to phase out fossil fuels. The next step is to develop a new generation of dryers that will use renewable energy only.”
Timber is becoming quite the sought after material in terms of building office space. A wooden skyscraper has been presented to the Mayor of London, Boris Johnson. It would be 80 storeys and stretch 300 metres high. Dr Michael Ramage, director of Cambridge’s Centre for Natural Material Innovation says, “The fundamental premise is that timber and other natural materials are vastly underused and we don’t give them nearly enough credit.” This on the back of revelations from the steel industry that is currently struggling in Britain. Does your office space line up with sustainable practices? If not, perhaps it will soon as the world moves towards sustainable workplaces.