Photo: Adam MørkType of building: Dwellings and outdoor pavilions
Year of construction: 2023
Location: Copenhagen, Denmark
Size: 147m2 (per house)
Project lead: VELUX
Building for people and planet
The aim of the Living Places project is two-fold. Firstly, it is designed to minimise the impact of the building industry in terms of energy and resource use. Secondly, it showcases an experimental living environment focused on improving people’s lives in an affordable way.
Through a series of innovative construction processes, Living Places shows that it is possible to build with a reduced carbon footprint in a way that is still affordable. The prototype village has a carbon footprint that is three times lower than an average Danish single-family house with an indoor environment that is three times better. Furthermore, it only uses existing technologies.
The prototype is designed to be scaled, making buildings of this kind commercially viable. The initiative is multi-disciplinary in its approach and includes investors, contractors, engineers, architects, and other experts.
Dimensions
In order to comprehensively assess the health of the building in this case study, various dimensions were evaluated, each measured through specific indicators relevant to their respective domains. The following figure presents the ratings for each dimension, providing a visual summary of the building's overall health status.
Data insights for Denmark
Ideally, data should be available to measure all the sub-indicators from all the dimensions. However, data was only available for two of the indicators: Indoor Air Quality (IAQ) and Lighting and visual comfort of the Improving mental and physical health dimension.
Indoor air quality
As no data is available for indoor pollutants to monitor the IAQ indicator in schools and other buildings, the outdoor pollution rate is used. In Denmark, the rate of pollution has increased since 2015, indicating the importance of measures such as those introduced in Langebjerg school.
Lighting and visual comfort
More than 5% of Danish people consider their dwellings too dark, and this figure has increased since 2015. Better daylighting and exposure to light, as addressed by Langebjerg School, are clearly pressing issues to be tackled.
