The new Danfoss House will be ready in 2023, and will serve both as a housing construction as well as testing and demonstration center for Danfoss’s energy-efficient technologies. The ambition is to achieve the highest sustainability certification for an ordinary residential building in brick and concrete.
Danfoss and Bitten & Mads Clausen's Foundation are now constructing one of the world’s most sustainable residential buildings with traditional building materials and already existing energy-efficient technologies.
May 13th is Bitten and Mads Clausen’s wedding anniversary. They were married in 1939, and Bitten & Mads Clausen's Foundation is celebrating the day by announcing that the new building being constructed on the Als Strait in Sønderborg will be called Danfoss House.
In 2019, PFA Pension and Bitten & Mads Clausen's Foundation inaugurated the four-star hotel Alsik, where energy consumption has been reduced to less than a quarter of the normal consumption for this type of building, using Danfoss-installed energy-efficient solutions. A stone’s throw from there, the four-story Danfoss House is now under construction. The ambition is for Danfoss House to achieve DGNB platinum certification, the highest sustainability certification under the globally recognized DGNB standard. In this regard, construction is evaluated according to five criteria: environmental quality, economic quality, social quality, technical quality and process quality. Only 12 residential buildings in the world have achieved DGNB platinum certification.
According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), buildings account for more than a third of the world’s total energy consumption and 40% of all CO2 emissions. The ambition for Danfoss House is that it be as close to CO2-neutral as possible and a vibrant application development center (ADC), where Danfoss can continuously develop and test new technological solutions together with the residents.
Danfoss House will have both a central and decentralized heating system, to determine the optimal balance. The building also has underfloor heating and cooling from district heating and seawater cooling, respectively. In addition, the property will be a smart-home, where all the elements will communicate with each other. There is also a plan to install Danfoss Leanheat, a solution that uses artificial intelligence to monitor and control the temperature in buildings. In addition, the Danfoss House is technologically future proofed with large technical shafts, which make it possible to upgrade all installations and solutions.
With the building, Danfoss and Bitten & Mads Clausen's Foundation will show that it is possible to attain the highest sustainability certification with technology that already exists. Thus, it is being built in brick and concrete, the most used materials in our part of the world, but with sustainable choices, for example, by purchasing materials locally and factoring in recycling.
Bitten & Mads Clausen's Foundation has built energy-efficient housing for a number of years, and has built several gold-certified DGNB buildings. With Danfoss House, we tighten the curve by going for a platinum certification. Even though it will be a bit of a moon landing, I am sure that we will reach our goal and show that we can build sustainably for ordinary families with technology and materials that are available to everyone - right now.
Buildings account for over a third of the world’s energy consumption. We have the technologies to significantly reduce that number. We will have the opportunity to demonstrate this with Danfoss House. Danfoss House will be a great home for our expat employees, but also a testing and development center for our energy-efficient solutions, so that we can make them better and even more affordable. We look forward to providing a living example of the greenest energy being the energy we don't use, and hope others will be inspired to renovate and build more sustainably.
It is a great privilege to participate in the collaboration with Bitten & Mads Clausen's Foundation, which is both architecturally and environmentally ambitious. Achieving both goals requires the best of all the participants in the collaboration, who are forced to challenge ingrown habits and processes, but it is also greatly satisfying that together we can build the housing of the future.
A DGNB platinum certification also requires "social quality" and Danfoss House is being built according to an architectural plan that puts people at the center and promotes social interaction and equality. This is achieved, for example, via the building's shared roof terrace which, with its view over the Als Strait in Sønderborg, will be the place where all residents can meet. The plan is for Danfoss employees from around the world posted here to reside in the building
Danfoss House is supporting ProjectZero, whose goal is to reduce the Sønderborg area’s CO2 emissions to zero by 2029. ProjectZero is already supported by a number of concrete initiatives from Danfoss and Bitten & Mads Clausen's Foundation.
Construction will start in October 2021.
DGNB
DGNB stands for Deutsche Gesellschaft für Nachhaltiges Bauen, the German Council for Sustainable Construction. In Denmark, the Green Building Council is responsible for certifying sustainable construction and training consultants and auditors in the DGNB certification standard. There are four leading international sustainability standards, BREEAM, LEED, HQE and DGNB. DGNB distinguishes itself by being both innovative and future-proof. With a focus on total economy, DGNB is seen as a sustainability certification rather than an environmental certification. The DGNB assessment of a construction project is a 360-degree analysis that also includes parameters focused on the planning process surrounding the construction project, including user-involvement and the construction site. In this regard, Danfoss House has earned valuable points, just as the building’s financial quality and robustness also score points for the overall certification. Read more on www.dgnb.de
The master plan
Danfoss House will be one of the last pieces in the realization of the American architect Frank Gehry’s vision for Sønderborg Harbor. With Bitten & Mads Clausen's Foundation as a significant driving force, the harbor has been transformed from an industrial port into a dynamic and climate-friendly part of the city. This was done according to the master plan presented by Gehry in 2006.
ProjectZero
ProjectZero is Sønderborg’s vision for reducing the area’s CO2 emissions to zero by 2029 via conversion of the energy system, while creating new skills and green jobs. The starting point is almost 700,000 tons of CO2 emissions in 2007, corresponding to approx. 9.2 tons of CO2 per capita.Read more about ProjectZero