Ilse Wallentin House of the University of Natural Resources and Applied Life Sciences Vienna honored with Green & Blue Building Award
30. March 2021
The low-energy building of the Bundesimmobiliengesellschaft was planned by ARGE DELTA SWAP Architects.
The current Green & Blue Building Award goes to the Ilse Wallentin House, which was built by the Bundesimmobiliengesellschaft as a client for the University of Natural Resources and Applied Life Sciences (BOKU) Vienna. The new wooden building is a low-energy building and contributes to climate protection with very low CO2 emissions during construction and operation. The decision to use wood as a building material made it possible to construct the seminar building, which has been awarded the klimaaktiv Gold rating, in just 14 months. The planning was carried out by a joint venture of DELTA and SWAP Architects.
Hans-Peter Weiss, CEO of the Bundesimmobiliengesellschaft, on the occasion of the award ceremony: “As a renewable material, wood has great potential for sustainable construction methods and is also a very special building material because of its architectural possibilities. The Ilse Wallentin House is visible proof of this. In addition, construction projects can be significantly accelerated using timber construction methods. With the new wooden building at BOKU, we have erected a climate-friendly university building within a short period of time, which blends harmoniously into the BOKU campus around the Türkenschanze.”
Gudrun Ghezzo presented the Green & Blue Building Award: “In addition to numerous prominent submissions, the jury chose this project as the winner because it combines many aspects of sustainability: Renewable and recyclable materials, high flexibility of the building, user-centered development of the spatial concepts, and the shortened construction time due to BIM and prefabrication testify to comprehensive sustainability concepts along the entire life cycle.”
As a university of sustainability, the University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences Vienna not only teaches and researches these topics, it also lives them. “The new seminar building is the first building in timber construction in the university sector – and thus a pioneering work,” BOKU Director Hubert Hasenauer is pleased to say. “In order to be able to use a total of 1.000 m³ of wood here, we tried out a lot in our research curiosity, but we also had to observe many (wooden) rules. That’s how we ended up with a low-energy house that stores around 1.000 tons of CO2, acts as a second forest, so to speak, and has little impact on the environment.”
Christoph Falkner, partner at SWAP Architects: “The architectural concept for the timber construction is based on a clear grid as well as making the construction and technology visible. With the wooden surfaces and generous views of the greenery, the house offers various rooms where nature can be studied naturally.”
Rudolf Stürzlinger, CEO and co-owner at DELTA, explains the important role of general planning for cross-discipline buildings: “The early involvement and perfect interaction of all specialist disciplines ensured that we were able to provide an integral BIM model as the basis for project implementation and obtain the klimaaktiv Gold quality mark.”
Wolfgang Kradischnig, CEO and Company Spokesman at DELTA, emphasizes the optimal framework for the implementation of a sustainable project: “The fact that both the University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences and the Bundesimmobiliengesellschaft attach great importance to sustainable real estate made it possible to realize this showcase project of green building.”
The Green & Blue Building Award is presented by Ghezzo, organizer of the Green & Blue Building Conference, and real estate consulting firm Drees & Sommer. The award recognizes real estate projects that have a particular focus on sustainability. The criteria assessed are innovative strength, life cycle, social commitment, and ecological efficiency. The prize is awarded in two categories: “Projects” and “Products or services”. The Ilse Wallentin Haus received an award in the “Projects” category.
Photocredits
Group photo: Presentation of the Green & Blue Building Award to the Federal Real Estate Company, the University of Natural Resources and Applied Life Sciences Vienna and the architects © BOKU Medienstelle/Christoph Gruber Photos BOKU: Florian Voggeneder