Building 2050: International workshop in Gruyères

The building will house the smart living lab as of 2020 and will have to meet the 2050 environmental standards, a milestone towards the 2000-Watt society. The Building 2050 Research Program – made up of researchers from EPFL, HEIA-FR and the University of Fribourg – aims at defining the scientific characteristics of the building, whose facilities will include laboratories, offices and dwellings.

The main goal of the workshop was to validate and consolidate by an international scientific community, the results of eighteen months of research, in order to get ready for the operational phase in 2017.

Analysis of the research studies

The multidisciplinary teams of experts focused on the following 2050 research topics:

• a design assistance, in order to generate a limited carbon and energy budget
• the study of the perceived sense of comfort in (thermal inertia, lighting, ventilation)
• the optimization between green energy sources and the building’s energetic demand
• the limitation of the quantity of materials in the workspaces layout
• the implementation of a pertinent decision making process, ideally suited for this type of experimental project

Recommendations for the next stage

The experts insisted on the importance of making all the building-related issues user-centric, and of ensuring a simple decision making process. Rather than work surface densification, a specialization of spaces according to the activities performed should be prioritized. The smart living building’s dwellings will help continue the innovative research, as long as they show flexibility and adaptability. The type of residents will be determined by the experimentations to be performed.

The experts praised the originality and the thoroughness of the research and highlighted further lines of study to be explored.