Kömmerling Zero-Energy Corporate Headquarters, Madrid

In 2017, EnMedio Studio (David Moreno+Elena Vilches) won the international competition for the new Kömmerling coroporate headquarters in Madrid. The proposal was called In[Between]. This initiative aimed to become a landmark in Zero Consumption Buildings in Spain, anticipating European regulations where all new buildings had to be nearly-zero energy consumption as of 2020. In this context, a triple challenge was launched: the winning proposal had to create a high quality environment for workers, materialized in a zero-energy building of 850-1000m2 at a ‘reasonable’ cost. To achieve these objectives, the promoter Kömmerling and ‘Zero City Project’ proposed a methodology that combines legal (IPD contract), management (LEAN construction) and technological (BIM methodology) tools.

Enmedio Studio also set its own methodology in order to achieve the triple challenge: the implementation of the following principles from the very first steps of the design:
1 Creation of healthy work environments of high quality architecture: the user deserves not only fonctional spaces, but also beautiful spaces. It was a must the possibility to have friendly outdoor views, daylighting, or the creation of meeting areas, just to make them feel happy about going to work. Two semi-buried volumens (offices and showroom) were proposed, delimitating the reception plaza. A southern rear garden was created, as well as patios, in order to forget the rough industrial context where the building is inserted.

2 Materiality: the need of meeting the requirements of the ‘pencil rule’ and the ‘marker rule’ set by Passivhaus, leads to the design of a very strong building envelope, based on the minimization of thermal bridges, low transmittance and very high airtightness (n50=0.4 ≤ 0.6 1/h). To fulfill these conditions, an integrated system was used, where structure and insulation constitute a single element: an EPS panel is sprayed with microconcrete on both sides, sewn with steel armature.

3 Energy balance and environmental quality: to achieve a zero-energy building, the implemented passive, semi-passive and active strategies were optimized using multiple calculation tools and software. The as-built results obtained in PHPP were outstanding: 10 kWh/m2a heating demand (<15 kWh/m2y), 8 kWh/m2y cooling demand (<15 kWh/m2y) and 59 kWh/m2y PER demand. The zero-energy condition was achieved by installating 70 PV pannels (455 W) on the roof.

4 Reasonable financial budget. Thanks to this project, it is proved that a zero-consumption building can have a limited budget as long as the design is optimized from its inception, through the prompt implementation of passive strategies that do not require advanced technologies.

Once its construction was completed, the Zero-Energy Building achieved the following seals: BREEAM (Very Good), GREEN (3 leaves) and Passivhaus (Plus). This recognition guarantees the environmental quality of the project.