Call for Pre-Proposals: Empa NEST Unit from EPFL Researchers

© 2015 EMPA

© 2015 EMPA

To strengthen research activities on energy and a sustainable built environment and promote exchanges between Empa and EPFL, a call for pre-proposal is open to EPFL researchers. The proposal should aim at developing a NEST Unit in Dübendorf with high potential for an application to the smart living lab project. Pre-proposals must be submitted at latest on December 4th and will be reviewed by an ad hoc committee of experts within the ETH domain, and the selected project will be funded by Empa.

The NEST is a modular research and innovation platform developed by Empa, with a solid foundation and exchangeable living and work areas called units. The smart living lab is a research center dedicated to future building development that will host the EPFL Fribourg outpost. Its building will be an ahead-of-its-time living and work space to host and support research activities. Its construction within the blueFACTORY site in Fribourg is expected to be finished in 2020.

The proposal should include plans to build an office unit within the research and innovation platform NEST in Dübendorf that shows a high potential for application in designing the smart living lab research program. The focus will be on developing an office unit with special emphasis on enveloping comfortable conditions, user responsiveness and/or regulation system, and responding to the critical environmental issues of 2050. Key aspects should include addressing users’ needs while considering future climatic conditions as well as CO2 objectives of the 2000 watt society and embodied energy considerations.

It is expected that this first implementation within the NEST as well as its evaluation will lead to recommendations for future experimentations within the smart living building. Depending on the time frame of the smart living building construction, those recommendations could also potentially influence specific aspects implemented in the building.