Metaglas sliding windows in award-winning facade by TU Delft students

At the Solar Decathlon Europe, championship for energy-efficient building, TU Delft students just missed out on the world title. Their plan for building an energy-independent home powered by solar energy was awarded second place.

The MOR (Modular Office Renovation) team is a team of some 54 TU Delft students of 14 different nationalities. Together with construction professionals, they have spent months working on a prototype to transform energy-guzzling office buildings into flexible residential complexes. This involved merging the terms modular, circular and net-positive into one design/prototype, which they presented at the low-energy building championship in Hungary.

Transforming inefficient office

Transforming existing real estate is the solution, according to MOR. More than half of all office buildings in the Netherlands have an energy label of D or lower and are prohibited from 2023 due to changing legislation. This combined with the one million homes needed by 2030 and the high demand for affordable starter homes, the MOR team used a case study to realize a design. The design is based on a typical office building in the Netherlands: office building with a fixed grid and concrete structure. The team's intervention transforms the building into an energy-neutral, circular, flexible and smart residential complex. According to MOR, the concept offers a contribution to the challenge of reducing the large number of inefficient office buildings. Office renovation is possible using four modules: facade, bathroom/kitchen, bed/office and wall. This makes renovation accessible and affordable.

For the facade, the students chose Metaglas' vertical sliding windows, as the desire was to implement both passive and active systems in the facade. Thus, the vertical sliding windows provide fresh air in summer, while in winter they close and the incoming air is pre-heated by the "PV chimney". The facade elements realized in cooperation with De Groot & Visser offer many advantages and flexibility that greatly increase efficiency on a construction site. Metaglas optimized the profiles for this project and applied triple glazing to keep energy losses as low as possible.

SDE19 in Hungary

During the Solar Decathlon Europe (SDE) 2019, the prototypes of the participating teams were built within ten days and judged on ten parts. A partial prize was to be won for each component, after which all the points were added together to determine the final winner. The MOR team managed to secure no less than 8 podium spots in the various parts, and with a difference of 1.7 points from the French team, they finished in a brilliant 2nd place in the overall standings.