Aalto students enter competition with a wooden zero-energy building

 

Aalto University's team has built a zero-energy building with a Finnforest Kerto® frame in Espoo, Finland. The building, called Luukku, will take part in the Solar Decathlon competition for energy-efficient building in Madrid in the spring of 2010. The competition is an international decathlon between universities, with the contests including architecture, energy-efficiency and innovativeness among others. Each team will build a prototype home that is powered exclusively by the sun.

Wood products are not only extremely energy-efficient but also ecological – throughout their life cycle. Increasing wood construction is a sustainable way of slowing down climate change. Compared to other construction materials, for instance, the carbon footprint of wood products is overwhelmingly small.

The floor area of the completely wooden building is 42 m2. Its frame consists of 39-mm thick Kerto panels for the walls and 51-mm thick Kerto panels for the floor and roof. "In selecting the materials for the panel frame, Kerto's stiffness and straightness were the decisive factors," says the head of the project, Pekka Heikkinen, professor of wood construction at the Helsinki University of Technology's Department of Architecture. "It’s easier to make a building tight with a panel frame than with a conventional frame."

The 75-square-metre roof of the building is completely covered with solar panels. They produce the heating energy required in Finland as well as the cooling energy needed in the Spanish summer. When the building is transferred to Spain in the spring of 2010, the zero-energy building will become a plus-energy building, meaning that it will begin to produce more energy than it needs.  The Finnish Mäntyharju holiday home fair in 2011 will be the final destination of the building.

When the building is transferred to its final destination at the Finnish Mäntyharju holiday home fair in 2011, it will be given a fireplace. The idea of the Solar Decathlon competition is that no other sources of heat besides solar energy are used.

Before the spring, a measurement and research phase will be carried out in Otaniemi, Espoo, in the yard of the Helsinki University of Technology's Wood Studio. The technology connected with ventilation and heating, for instance, will be studied over the winter, and a single carbon footprint will be calculated for the house. 

The Finland team involved students from all universities within the Aalto University. Architectural design was carried out by students of the international Wood Program from the Helsinki University of Technology's Department of Architecture.

The building concept has been developed by several departments of the Helsinki University of Technology, the Institute of Building Services Technology and VTT. The main funder has been Sitra, the Finnish Innovation Fund, and companies whose innovative products will be exported together with the Luukku building as a proof of the high level of Finnish know-how.

Further information:
Jouni Hakkarainen, R&D Manager, Metsäliitto Wood Products Industry, tel. +358 50 598 9611, e-mail jouni.hakkarainen@finnforest.com 

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