Innovative and Sustainable Office Building | Green Office 2015 | RAU

Green Office 2015 is an innovative vision of and a concrete plan for the comprehensive activation of inner city areas and their integration with the surrounding districts. Developed as an integrated whole, this unique concept offers solutions for various social issues. It is an ambitious project on which numerous project partners from the building sector, the business world, knowledge institutes and government authorities collaborated from the very start.........more

Almere Poort Supermarket | Almere | the Netherlands | RAU

start: 2008
gross floor area: 8000 m2
location: Almere
function: retail, housingcomplex, park
performance: energy-autonome and CO2 free shopping centre and adaptable housing: self supporting in climate control and energy supply


2008: Initiated by the Dutch Municipality of Almere, a sustainable community complex comprising a supermarket, shops and adaptable housing for senior-citizens is currently being developed in the ‘Columbuskwartier’ (Columbus Quarter) neighbourhood. Columbus Quarter is part of the city’s evolving ‘Almere Poort’ district.

Almere was established in 1975 and is the largest city in the Dutch Province of Flevoland, a province entirely reclaimed from the sea during the 1950s and 1960s. This young city is Europe’s fastest growing urban area and currently has 185.000 inhabitants.....more

Vanke's Valley Housing | Shenzen | China | RAU

start: 2008
gross floor area: 48.000 m2
location: Shenzen
function: luxury residences in nature reserve
performance: net zero energy residences

On the intercession of the Dutch Ministry of Housing, Spatial Planning and the Environment, RAU is advising a multi-billion Chinese developer on a project that would place 120 homes within a crucial water extraction area inhabited by protected species in an ecologically responsible and energy-neutral manner.

Shenzhen is just north of Hong Kong. After Shanghai, it is the busiest port in China and has grown over the last 30 years from a sleepy fishing village to a high-tech financial centre in tropical southern China. To the north of the city is a river basin landscape. Evacuated since 1998, it has a rich biodiversity and is crucial as a supply of drinking water for the local population.

China Vanke Co., Ltd., a listed company for 18 years, is the largest housing developer in China. As of 2007, this company managed 31 million m² of land (11 million of which was already residential area) and had another 42 million in the pipeline. Vanke has an agreement with the local government to build 120 homes over this extremely vulnerable valley.

The solution was pole houses: pre-fab houses on a concrete platform (the basic construction site) floating on a single pole above the landscape. Tilted to provide their own shade, they are also cooled naturally by an updraft provided by a patio. Their ‘green’ roofs are covered with vegetation and solar panels. Accessed by a single road under which water and fauna can move with no obstructions, this plan minimises the loss of crucial vegetation both during construction and in use.....more