Walk the talk. Our flagship zero-emissions office
We plan and design the sustainable communities and cities of the future. This mission starts with us, not just with words but also in deeds. At Sweco Belgium, we are committed to become fully climate-neutral by 2030. Using ground-breaking new technology, we transformed our Sweco office in Zelzate into a flagship zero-emissions building.
- Client
- Sweco Belgium
- Location
- Zelzate
- Period
- 2019-2022
- Partner
- Arteum Architects
- Services
- Architecture, MEPF Study and follow-up, Sustainability advice
- Surface
- 2,400 m²
Reuse of the core structure
Our brand new office was officially inaugurated on April 22nd 2022. The new office creates a healthy, creative and high-performance work environment which helps colleagues to be more fulfilled. To limit our carbon footprint, we decided to reuse the core structure of the existing building. In that way, we didn’t have to demolish and recycle the old structure. Only a small part, a non-functioning atrium was demolished and replaced by a gallery along both wings of the building, considerably improving the circulation and giving it a more visual presence.
The floorplan lay-out is conceived as an open plan office building, with landscape offices clustered along the outside façade. Along the gallery, secondary functions are grouped, such as the library, toilets and meeting rooms. This maximises the spacious feeling within the building, in large contrast to the former office.
Belgium’s first smart charging hub
To use the on-site produced renewable energy to its maximum potential, we installed an innovative Vehicle-to-Grid technology, or V2G for short. This is Belgium’s first smart charging hub. Two 11kW charging stations allow bidirectional energy flow. When the PV-panels produce enough energy, the electric cars are charged with this green energy. Whenever there is a spike in the energy consumption of the building, energy from the cars can be discharged temporarily, and used to flatten out this spike. It is planned to expand the project in the future with an additional eight EV charging stations.
Smart technologies enable gains
We installed a large number of meters to register and monitor the energy consumption as well as the interior climate. Thanks to smart technology the Facility Manager gains insights into the energy consumption and can calibrate the HVAC-system more accurately, increasing the comfort for the users and decreasing energy costs.
250 MWh/year of green heating and cooling
To cut carbon emissions, the existing gas installation was abolished and replaced by a full electric heating system. Two geothermal heat pumps, connected with a 276 kW drycooler and a Borehole Thermal Energy Storage (BTES) field provide clean and green heating. As a bonus, the system allows for free cooling in summer, ensuring a perfectly climatized building in summer, at a low operating cost and without any additional environmental impact. The roof offers space for a 100 kVA PV-installation.
Preserving water, the new blue gold
The new building deals with rainwater management on a few different levels. First, we used green roofs wherever possible, to allow for rainwater buffering and delayed discharge. For the paving, we chose permeable materials, so the rainwater can infiltrate quickly and spread-out across the site as much as possible.
All collected rainwater is gathered within four large rainwater pits, each having a capacity of 20m³. The collected rainwater is used for both the sanitary and cleaning, as well as for greenkeeping. Lastly, all excess rainwater will overflow from these buffer tanks to a moat-like infiltration volume. The capacity of this volume is large enough to buffer all built and paved surfaces, even the permeable ones.
