GROW

“Is it Christmas already?” rejoiced our involved façade planners when they heard the result of the overall performance competition for the new Polybau training center and Swiss building envelope headquarters in Uzwil. The GROW project, developed jointly with Immo3 Partner AG and RLC Architekten, was awarded 1st place. It goes without saying that participating in this process was a special honor and challenge for our building envelope experts, as the task explicitly included the construction of a new association center for this very industry as well as the associated educational institution. Founded in 1907, the national industry association Building Envelope Switzerland stands for the professions of roofer, waterproofing specialist, façade builder and solar installer, and the training center in Uzwil is one of the two main training centers in these professions.
GROW cleverly combines the extension buildings with the existing building. The new Polybau training center joins the “tradition” of the surrounding municipal and school buildings as independent structures that enter into a dialogue with each other. The facades of the new building, planned as a timber construction, are defined by PV modules and corrugated eternit.

 

 

The existing office and commercial building including the underground buildings will be retained. This will save large amounts of gray energy and shorten the construction time. The facades of the existing building will be clad with PV modules. These can be viewed from the existing roof terrace from the rear. This allows the substructure, cabling and other details of PV technology to be explained pragmatically in class.
Special attention is paid to the use of solar power and solar heat in this building, as solar installers are also trained in the building. PV (electricity component only) and PVT (with electricity and thermal component) on facades and roofs with a total area of around 870m2 or 145 kWp generate around 145,000 kWh per year. The PV systems are able to cover over 80% of the total energy consumption for heating, cooling, electricity for appliances and lighting.

(Visualizations: RLC Architects)