The SARA project finished successfully on 31st of May 2008. No more information will be updated on this website.

Nevertheless, all the results about Ecobuildings design, planning and construction, as well as all documents concerning dissemination and training activities, are available for download. All this information should be very useful for other Ecobuildings projects as well as for decisions makers, buildings managers and owners, architects, buildings workers, teachers and students.

Final reports and the Plan for Using and Disseminating the Knowledge are available to download (here)

The following matrix should help you to find the information you are looking for:

For more information concerning SARA project and results, you do not hesitate to contact SARA project partners

A video that presents the SARA buildings in Ljubljana and Southampton is now available on the web.

To access to the video click on the link bellow :

Growing Ecologic Buildings -> http://www.youris.com/Energy/Growing_Ecologic_Buildings.kl

The 7th Sara Bulletin is now available from the Project Newsletter page

This edition highlights the great work made during SARA project and emphasise project’s results. Additionally, the newsletter made a descritption of all the different documents edited by SARA partners : Teaching Pack, Good Practice Guide, ETAS brochure, etc.

As an awareness raising campaign, the European Solar Days aim to promote the use of the sun as an energy source for all solar applications, Solar Thermal and Photovoltaic, throughout Europe. The first European Solar Days will be celebrated on 16-17 May 2008 when over 4000 different events will be staged in ten European countries. (More information is available from the web site: www.solardays.eu)

For the SARA project, this event is a great opportunity for all the SARA partners to communicate on the Eco-buildings performances and on the results and lessons learned of the project.

In France Hespul will organise, on 15th of May, a workshop called “Jointly own PV systems a local solution, against a global problem” in coordination with the programme deSOLaSOL, which objective is “bringing photovoltaic closer to people”. This workshop objective is giving to local decisions markers and investors, the tools to carry out a project of joint-ownership PV systems. This workshop will be the occasion to disseminate the results of SARA project concerning the local dissemination and public access interface.

In Slovenia, the Mercator Center Ljubljana will organise a one-day event, on 17th of May in collaboration with our local agency Ape. This event will held in the new building and is a way to conclude the dissemination of the SARA project and to coincide with this international initiative for solar energy.

The programme will be composed of 3 main parts:

1.) Well known person Mr. Andrej Klemenc known as environmental activist is going to be invited. He will present his car which works on a solar energy and he will also be available to present energy efficient technology.

2.) In the building area where is children’s playground we are going to prepare an animation programme for children on a theme of sun and energy.

3.) Project SARA and energy efficient technology we have had implemented in our new building is going to be represented by posters and brochures.

In Barcelona, ICAEN and DMAH will organise an international training workshop with the participation of other SARA partners on 19th of May; in order to present a Good Practice Guide to the main public and especially to the Catalan Governmental facility managers. This training material has been elaborated by the Catalan partners ICAEN and DMAH. This guide has been divided into two volumes. One is focusing mainly on “Environmental Quality in Buildings”, and gives an overview on sustainable construction models; it has been elaborated by the Environmental Department of Catalan Government (DMAH). The other document has been elaborated by the Catalan Energy Institute (ICAEN) and is devoted to “Energy efficiency in public access buildings”, giving technical guidance for the facility managers of public access buildings concerning energy efficiency and the integration of renewable energies and water management in existing buildings.

In Austria, Arsenal will organise a conference call “Eco-buildings - innovation and replicability”, on 20th of May. In this event the results of four SARA eco-buildings abroad in Spain, France, England and Slovenia and one eco-building in Vienna, the ENERGYbase are shown. Based on these practical examples, following questions will be discussed: How innovative are these buildings? What about realisation experiences? What about replicability of these measures and concepts?

More information

If your are interested to know more about the SARA participation to the European Solar Day, and to receive the press dossier concerning SARA participation and events.

Please contact Sylvain Koch-Mathian (Hespul): sylvain.koch-mathian@hespul.org

ICAEN has developed eight posters present in a very visual and comprehensive manner general information on innovative design principles and technologies as well as examples of their implementation in the Primary Health Care Center Roger de Flor in Barcelona. The posters are designed to be easily adapted to other public access buildings, using only the design and general text and substituting the specific text on the Primary Health Care Center by particular information on the required building. The information contained in the posters is furthermore displayed on a flat screen placed in the building’s entrance, where it gets complemented by specific measured and frequently updated consumption data revealing the building’s energy performance. English language versions of the posters are available for download from the SARA project website for adaptation to other projects and buildings.

These posters could be download here

Descriptions of all 22 buildings built or refurbished with support from the European Commission’s Ecobuildings programme have been brought together in a single publication: the Ecobuildings brochure. This 66 page full colour publication includes details of the design concepts and constructive details of each building as well as first hand experiences from the local actors involved in the construction process.

The Ecobuildings Brochure could be download here

The European Commission has selected the SARA project to be featured in an internet TV programme. This will be one of a series of programmes to promote Renewable Energy Sources. Filming started in the Southampton University Services Building on February 21st and the Mercator Supermarket in Ljubljana on February 22nd and will continue elsewhere in early March. The programme should be broadcast on the internet in Spring 2008. Watch this space to find out when and where it can be seen.

In the images you can see one of the SARA team showing the camera the public access interface installed in the Mercator building. As with the other SARA buildings, this interface not only provides information about the project and the EC energy performance in buildings objectives, it also provides real-time energy information from the building to demonstrate performance and raise energy use awareness of building users.

SARA was nominated for a prize in the Demonstration & Dissemination category of the Sustainable Energy Europe Campaign Awards Ceremony t held In Brussels on January 29th 2007 during the European Sustainable Energy Week (www.eusew.eu).

Background to the award In 2007, the University of Barcelona Solar Energy Group joined the Sustainable Energy Europe Campaign (www.sustenergy.org) in the name of, and on behalf of, the SARA project and project consortium.

The Campaign organises an annual awards ceremony to coincide with the European Union sustainable Energy Week (www.eusew.eu) held annually in Brussels, Belgium. The SARA project is 1 of 4 projects selected for nomination, by a committee of experts, from the 150+ projects that participate in the Sustainable Energy Europe Campaign. All four projects will be recognised and presented during the ceremony. A second committee selected one of the 4 projects to receive the award. Although SARA was not given the award the nomination in itself is recognition of the work and achievement of all those participating in the project.

In the framework of the EU Sustainable Energy Week, the Tour de Salvagny and Hespul organised a visit of its primary school.

This event was a veritable success. More than 60 persons participated in the visit. The majority of the public was composed of decision makers (80%) and architects.

This visit was the occasion to discuss the lessons learned during the design and the construction of the school and distributed a handbook for future building owners. This guide informs the participants about management and stakeholder interactions for the construction of an eco-building and is now available in French (click here) and soon in English.

The visit has generated a lot of enthusiasm among the different participants and will contribute to eco-building projects in the Rhone area.

Since its occupation and thanks to the innovative character of the building and the motivation of Tour de Salvagny Mayor, the school is a success story: the school is visit by local authorities and professionals approximately 4 times a month.

For more information:

Tour de Salvagny Primary School specifications: www.sara-project.net/article.php3?id_article=13

EU Sustainable Energy Week: www.eusew.eu

For the EU Sustainable Energy Week, the Tour de Salvagny and Hespul will organise a visit of its primary school.

This event will be the occasion to discuss the lessons learned during the design and the construction of the school. Additionally, a handbook for future building owners will be distributed during the visit. This guide will inform the participants about management and stakeholder interactions for the construction of an eco-building. For more information: Tour de Salvagny Primary School specifications: www.sara-project.net/article.php3?id_article=13 EU Sustainable Energy Week: www.eusew.eu

The 2nd EU Sustainable Energy Week, EUSEW 2008, will take place in Brussels, Belgium and in other cities across Europe from Monday 28 January until Friday 1 February 2008.

For more information visit www.eusew.eu

The 6th Sara Bulletin is now available from the Project Newsletter page

This editions highlights SARA’s adhesion to the Sustainable Energy Europe Campaign, the results of Post Occupancy Evaluation in the Southampton University Administration Building, and features photos and news from the inauguration of the "Roger de Flor" Barcelona Primary Health Care Centre.

The Barcelona SARA building, the 2000m2, “Roger de Flor” Primary Health Care Centre was officially inaugurated on Saturday 10th November by the Catalan Government Minister of Health, Marina Geli and the Mayor of Barcelona, Mr Jordi Hereu.

The inauguration ceremonies included a guided visit of the building attended by over 100 people including district councillor and the Director of the Catalan Health Service. Explanations were given regarding the SARA project and the innovative energy and environmental aspects of the building.

Nine representatives of all participants involved in the construction process, from building contractors, mechanical and electrical installation, building management system contractors and the official site surveyor, attended a short training session designed to help them understand the ecobuilding process and principals.

The 9th November 2007 training session, jointly organised by the University of Ljubljana, Faculty of Civil and Geodetic Engineering and PS Mercator, allowed participants to discuss the impacts of real site conditions on the execution of good design, and highlighted the general awareness of participants on good ecobuilding design principals.

SARA has been welcomed as a Partner of the campaign recently; you can read SARA details in the campaign Partnership Database.

Involvement in the Campaign will give SARA partners a unique opportunity to participate in Europe Wide event such as the Sustainable Energy Week 2008, to be held from Monday 28th January.

The 4th Ecobuildings Newsletter is now available! The Newsletter gives an overview of progress in the different buildings and projects, as well as information on what’s happening in Europe at the moment, including events and publications.

The newsletter can be downloaded from the Ecobuildings website or here on the Sara project web site.

Southampton University has two webcams showing live images of the administration building.

The first webcam shows the local weather, with a view of the photovoltaic system.

The second webcam shows the entrance and atrium of the building, giving visitors an idea of the building’s use and occupation, as well as more discret information on building visiotrs (are they wearing coats and scarves or shorts?!)

You can visit the webcams in the Online Monitoring Data section of the SARA project website.

The latest Sara Bulletin, the 5th, is now available for download.

It features an in depth look at the Barcelona Primary Health Care Centre, information on upcoming events and Ecobuildings news.

Preparation works and demolition began on the site of the future Mercator Centre in Ljubljana, Slovenia in March. Construction will follow and it is expected that the Centre will be open for business in time for the Christmas period.

This project building will feature innovative daylighting integration harmonized with artificial lighting, excellent insulation, glazing with low emission deposits, application of condensation heat in cooling appliances, used for warm sanitary water, floor heating/cooling, demand control displacement ventilation and advanced building management system with extensive monitoring capabilities.

Project documentation is developed by Mercator Optima in collaboration with University of Ljubljana, Faculty of Civil and Geodetic Engineering.

The Presidency Conclusions for the Brussels European Council of March demonstrate a firm support for ambitious renewable energy and energy efficiency goals, with a commitment to achieve at least a 20% reduction of greenhouse gas emissions by 2020 compared to 1990.

The futur Energy Policy for Europe will be built on an Energy Action Plan that will include highly ambitious quantified targets on energy efficiency and renewable energies. Energy Technologies will play an important part in reaching the objectives.

The Commission has launched a public consultation for the development of a European Strategic Energy Technology Plan (SET-Plan). The plans purpose is to reach a shared European vision on the role that technology could play in a sustainable energy future.

Conclusion of the March European Council
http://ec.europa.eu/energy/energy_policy/index_en.htm

SET-Plan Consultation
http://ec.europa.eu/energy/res/consultation/setplan_en.htm

Ecobuildings is an energy demonstration initiative of the European Commission (DG TREN) within the sixth Framework Programme. There are currently four Ecobuilding programmes; SARA, BRITA in PuBs, Demohouse and Eco-culture.

The poster highlights the key points, synergies and differences of the four programmes, and will be an interesting tool for programme participants.

Visit the Ecobuildings web site for more information on all of these programmes, or download the poster.

The UK Association of University Directors of Estates (AUDE) runs a Higher Education Environmental Performance Initiative (HEEPI) to improve the environmental performance of universities and colleges through environmental benchmarking and best practice, and shared information resources.

Southampton University’s Environmental Manager Dr Neil Smith invited the AUDE and HEEPI to hold their 8th February 2007 meeting in the recently built George Thomas Building, Southahmpton’s SARA project building, 2nd place in last year’s HEEPI awards.

Despite the worst snowfall of the year the night before the meeting (almost the only snow), 35 senior officers of the leading Universities’ estates departments from Manchester, Newcastle and even Scotland heard about the project from architect Russel Hayden of Nicholas Hare Architects and from John Brightwell, the project co-ordinator. They inspected the building, and visited the Energy Centre (providing CHP (Combined Heat and Power) to the Highfield campus, a contender for the 2007 HEEPI Award).

The participants were able to critically analyse the good and the weak points of the project and understand the defining choices. Much interest was expressed in the use of lime mortar, which has considerable carbon benefits.

The presentations given during the meeting can be downloaded in the Past Events section.

Southampton University continues to press forward with its sustainable development programme, having learnt many useful lessons on the SARA project.

The University of Ljubljana, Faculty of Civil and Geodetic Engineering has been very active in making information about the SARA project available in Slovenia. Each Bulletin is rapidly translated, and a dedicated web site in Slovenian is available since March, available at http://kske.fgg.uni-lj.si/sara/.

It is also possible to browse many pages of this website in Slovenian, by selecting "slovenscina" in the menu in the upper right hand corner of this web site.

The fourth Sara bulletin was published in English and Slovenian in October. Other language versions will soon be available.

This edition of the Bulletin contains an interview of John Brightwell, the Project Coordinator for Estates & Facilities at the University of Southampton, for a detailed look at the Southhampton University building, as well as the customary project updates.

On Monday 9th October the Conference “Edificis Públics Ecoeficients” took place in Barcelona. Organized by the Departament de Medi Ambient I Habitatge (DMAh) of the Catalan Government, the objective was to explain the new Catalan Eco-efficiency in buildings directive that came in to force in February 2006. The SARA project in general and the Barcelona SARA primary health care building in particular were presented as examples of good practice.

The conference was followed by a site visit to the Barcelona SARA building that is now almost complete. About 30 people attended this site visit: architects, engineers, building managers and building owners. The Architect, Francisco Gallardo, and Consultant Engineer, Xavier Martínez, explained the building energy efficiency design and services engineering concepts. Although work on installations is not yet complete, One Doctor’s consulting room has been finished as a sample and this was used to illustrate the innovative building materials: windows with high performance glazing, lighting controls, radiant panels incorporated on ceilings.

This week saw the first SARA on-site training session for construction workers at the Barcelona SARA building.

Wednesday’s session lasted 45 minutes and was attended by six staff of the various installation companies now working on site (Plumbers, electricians, insulation and HVAC system installers).

The objectives of the course were to raise awareness of the importance of high energy performance, to discuss the need for attention to detail in installation work in relation to issues suich as thermal bridges and to transmit the importance of the demonstration project in terms of monitored performnce and replication of the results.

The course was based on the excellent material prepared primarily by Arsenal Rersearch in collaboration with other participants. This material is now available for download from the training tools section of this web site.

The accompanying photograph shows the building workers and SARA training tutors standing in front of the natural cork insulation ready to be installed. In the upper right corner of the photograph background, some of the completed building structure can also be seen.

Work undertaken by the Sustainable Energy Research Group of the University of Southampton, based on the SARA co-financed building at the same UK University, was recently presented at the UK Chartered Institution of Building Service Engineers (CIBSE) National Conference.

The full bibliographic details are: Jentsch M.F., James P.A.B. and Bahaj A.S. (2006) A climatic envelope extension of an office building - perception and reality of the change in environmental conditions. Proceedings CIBSE National Conference, London, 21-22 March 2006.

Click here to download the paper and presentation from the CIBSE website.

For updates on the different ecobuildings, and a closer look at the Tour de Salvagny Primary School, check out the 3rd issue of the Sara Bulletin.

Visit the Sara project newsletter page for the current and prevous issues, not only of the Sara Bulletin but also the Ecobuildings Newsletter

Nicolas Detry, archictect and consultant for the Carebuk project in Uzbekistan will be giving a conference on the 31st March 2006 on the Carebuk project

More information here: http://www.poliba.it/Architettura/poliba.htm

The project is also featured in the 116th edition of Controspazio, an italien / bilingual urban architectural magazine, with an extensive article by Nichals Detry.

More information here: http://www.gangemi.com/periodici-dettaglio.asp?categoria=40

Wednesday 30th November 2005 at 14h30 will see a site visit of the Tour de Salvagny Primary School, near Lyon, France.

The site visit is co-organised by the local SAVE Energy Agency (ALE Lyon), Local Council, the Lyon Conurbation Council, the Rhone Alpes Regional Council and the regional office of the National Environment and Energy Agency (ADEME)

The many partners involved demonstrates the key role the Tour de Salvagny Ecobuilding has in the dissemination of Ecobuilding concepts in France.

To join the visit (in French only), write to Sylvain Chirat, ALE Lyon at ale.lyonagglo@wanadoo.fr

For more information on the Tour de Salvagny Primary School see the project description

Download a review of the technical tour during the conference by Sara project partner Anita Preisler of arsenal research.

Visit the events page

The latest SARA Bulletin is now available; download it here

This edition has put the Southhampton University Eco-building under the spotlight, and includes information about the monitoring systems as well as a progress update an all the eco-buildings.

The next edition of the bi-annual Bulletin will appear in March 2006

COMMON SYMPOSIUM of EU FP6 ECO-BUILDING PROJECTS

BERLIN, GERMAN MUSEUM FOR TECHNICS & TRANSPORT NOVEMBER 22nd - 23rd 2005

For more information visit the Eco-buildings Common Web site: http://www.ecobuildings.info/Events.html

Eco-buildings Common Web Site

" Eco-buildings is an energy demonstration initiative of the European Commission (DG TREN) within the sixth Framework Programme.

The (Eco-buildings common web site) portal will provide common information on project development and links to the individual projects and other relevant sites."

extract from Eco-buildings common web site

SARA will be presented at the upcoming European Conference and Cooperation Exchange on Sustainable Energy Systems for Buildings and Regions 2005 in Vienna, Austria.

Event details:

VIENNA, AUSTRIA OCTOBER 5th - 8th 2005

To download the programme and obtain more information please consult the conference Web page http://www.irca.at/energy

Construction work has commenced on the Primary Health Care Center in Barcelona. The information panel at the site entrance details financial support and programme participation.

Barcelona Primary Health Care Centre Construction Site

Wednesday 8th June saw two groups visiting the Tour de Salvagny Primary School eco-building.

The first group, lead by the local association Ville & Aménagement Durable (Sustainable City & Development) and the project architects discussed the architectural choices of the construction and their ecological merits.

The second group, from the Champagne-Ardennes Region, was for a local council ready to invest in an inter-communal Primary School built according to eco-building principals. The president of the future school, the Mayor as well as representatives of the local chapter of the Fédération Français du Bâtiment (French building federation) were joined by local councillors and stakeholders.

Both groups visited the heating and ventilation systems, the classrooms and the photovoltaic system.

The Sara web site is now up and running, with a complete graphical interface. New pages will be added soon to complement the new design.