Apartment house Sunny Woods, Zürich-Höngg, 2001
MINERGIE®
Zero-heating-energy building
Awards
Swiss Solar Prize 2002
European Solar Prize 2002
This building comprising six apartments was a pioneer project for ecological and energy efficient construction. Although it is only certified to Minergie standard, the building is actually designed based on Passivhaus principles. Every apartment has two levels as well as either a garden or a roof terrace. The building was constructed entirely as a four-storey prefabricated timber structure at a time when only two-storey timber buildings were beginning to be allowed. Sunny Woods contributed to the development of energy efficient construction and consistently put the principles of solar architecture into practice. For the first time vacuum tube solar thermal collectors were treated as an architectural element used as balcony balustrades; the roof was completely covered with a PV-thin film system. Thus Sunny Woods turned into not only a zero-heating-energy house, but also a pioneer in timber construction and solar technology.