Architects: Unsangdong Architects Location: Kyeong Gi, South Korea Project Architect: Jang Yoon Gyoo, Shin Chang Hoon, Kim Youn Soo Project Team: Choi Young Eun, Kim Ho Jin, Ahn Hye Joon Partner Photographs: Sergio Pirrone
Project Area: 1,733.08 sqm Structural Engineering: The Kujo
Our civilization, having been progressed on industrialization and information, confronts to absolute demand for coexistence with nature. All the traces of civilization from architectural activities could mean ruins from the nature’s point of view. What we call civilization is producing dead architectural space and places by futuristic demands. As the society is civilizes the natural environment goes towards ruins. As capitalism is on progresses, the consumption-oriented society makes focus on environmental issues making global warming, exhaustion of natural resource and energy draining a subject that we can’t avoid. Especially the population of big cities, architecture, infra… because of theses endless expansions and consumptions, a new type of urban residence is required. Based on Landscape Architecture and Ecological Architecture, the demands for eco friendly system achieved by the combination artificiality and nature and symbiosis is also in that issue.
Energy Plus House; Korean Green Technology creates a new green housing which produces energy As the theme of a new type of dwelling, we suggest Energy + Green Home above Energy Zero. It is a type of dwelling which is a combination of architectural products of natural properties and a production way of artificial technology. This green home includes diverse factors such as structural system, materials, spatial composition, landscape-enrichment and facilitated human life. E+ Green Home is defined as a new energy plus sustainable house by synthesizing all the optimized green technology and a string of intelligent energy saving system. The building has acquired Passive House Certificate from Passivhaus Institut in Germany. It is the result of the collaboration work between UNSANGDONG Architects and Kolon Institute of Technology.
Jang Yoon Gyoo, Shin Chang Hoon(Two Principal Architects of UNSANGDONG Architects), Lee Sung Jin(Team Chief at Kolon Institute of Technology) and Yim Sung Gyun(CEO at Kolon Institute of Technology)
A Passive House is defined as ‘an energy efficient building that requires low heating or cooling energy for space and provides pleasant indoor environment during summer and winter’. Also, PH certification is a Building Energy Performance Certification in Germany which certifies the buildings that require less than 15kWh/m2 annual heating energy and below 120kWh/m2 of total primary energy supply. Buildings with PH certification must provide comfortable indoor environment to the occupants with only 1/8~1/10 of energy consumption of other general existing buildings.
PH certification takes different climates and existing conditions of other countries into consideration, and the certification is limited to building energy consumption and residents’ comfort. PH certification suggests strict criteria and it certifies only in case of satisfying it. Kolon Engineering & Construction satisfied total 33 items in German criteria and verification process for over 15 months to acquire the PH certification. In the process of the certification, various additional data were requested by German criteria which are different from the situation of Korea; however, the criteria could be satisfied only with Korean technologies by providing data of applications of domestic cases and experimentations.
The aim of ‘e + Green Home’ is to realize first domestic Energy Plus and a green home prototype of the future suggesting three e+ concepts; 1. Energy+, sustainable Energy Plus integrated with green technologies, 2. Eco+, environmental friendly housing, 3. Emotion +, housing which stimulates customer’s design emotion. The emphasis is to develop practicable green homes by reducing energy consumption in the house at the lowest cost and optimize the manufacturing technologies. Also, Kolon Engineering & Construction introduced advanced techniques of the production and building energy reduction by making agreement with Fraunhofer Institute of Solar Energy (Fraunhofer ISE) which has the best level of research on building and solar energy. And the construction of ‘e + Green Home’ has been completed through strict technical assessment.
Total 95 green technologies are applied to ‘e + Green Home’. First of all, the building energy consumption has been minimized by applying various high performance insulation and high density triple pane windows from the Energy+ technical elements. The performance of air tightness has been improved to minimized air leakage of the windows, and the indoor temperature has been maintained at constant temperature by applying vertical cylinder which helps indoor temperature to be stored in the concrete. Energy Plus has been achieved by applying solar heat and PV to additional necessary energy. And new technologies such as cooling radiator and natural lighting system with ventilation are applied to maximize the residents’ comfort.
Eco +, the wall and roof are planted to make a harmony between architecture and nature in life. Also, rain water is been purified to be used in the building, and recycled plastic and lumber are used to decorate interior space. Emotion +, several systems of KanKan, which is a storage brand of Kolon Engineering & Construction, are applied to optimize the storage space and stimulate residents’ design emotion. Residents’ health is also considered, and environment-friendly wallpapers and CO2 concentration monitoring are used in the building. 450 sensors are installed to monitor these various technologies, and e+ms (Energy + Management System) is added which can save, combine, and control the information on energy output and input by connecting with each elements such as lighting, outlets, switches, and etc.
