The Housing Association Ringgården in Lystrup

The housing association Ringgården, in Aarhus, has from 2002 to 2006 planned the construction of 130 social housing units as high-density/low-rise in Lystrup as an energy and environmentally friendly construction. The project is implemented in collaboration with the engineering firm Carl Bro and the Danish Center for Urban Ecology, DCUE. It is supported by the EU project “Sustainable Housing in Europe” (SHE) and Realdania.

Pre-fabricated elements from Germany is used in some buildings
Pre-fabricated elements from Germany is used in some buildings (foto: www.bf-ringgaarden.dk)

The project’s objective was the development of the social housing through a demonstration of how “environmentally, socially and architecturally sustainable housing” can be built within the framework of subsidized social housing.

The financial support for the project was used to develop the tender documents (April 2003), where the overall requirement was a “merging of high architectural quality with functional and environmental qualities.”

There tendering for 3 housing groups, which all had to meet general sustainability principles, but each with their own priorities.

Calculations

In the assessment of the projects the calculation programme BEAT, developed by the Danish Building Research Institute, was used to calculate and compare the projects’ environmental profile in a life cycle perspective.

The assessment also included calculations in relation to indoor climate and life cycle costing calculations. A Danish consortium won the bid for group A and C, while a German studio won Group B (late 2003).

The project is significant through its programme-work, in which specific requirements were set out for buildings environmental qualities. The overall project and the individual winning projects have received awards from the Danish Energy Saving Trust (2006) and the European programme Sustainable Housing in Europe” (2007). The construction of the passive houses will become the first major passive house construction in Denmark.

Difficulties in implementing the project

The construction has had problems in relation to the implementation (source: www.bf-ringgaarden.dk). The construction has not been completed within the economic framework for social housing in Aarhus (the project was forced to cancel biddings (February 2006)) and not before April 2007 did the Ministry of the Interior and Social Affairs give an exemption for groups B and C. The application for group A is still unresolved (in January 2008).

Group B has been built with German prefabricated elements (moving in April 2008)

Energy savings in Lærkehaven

(from www.bf-ringgaarden.dk)

Af Jesper Holm, Inger Stauning og Bent Søndergård, RUC, 2008

This web-site is edited by Roskilde University in cooperation with Technical University of Denmark, Danish Building Research Institute, Technological Institute, PP-consult, Syd-tek and Bjørn Axelsen ApS. Coordinator: Inger Stauning, RUC, is (a) ruc .dk