Owner:
CIPEF (Coopérative immobilière du personnel fédéral)
(in collaboration with D. Démétriadès and P. Chiché)Date:
1990
This estate of 32 apartments, designed to be heated with solar energy results from a national open architectural competition throughout Switzerland.
The CIPEF cooperative received the support of the Swiss Confederation.
The complex respects the most advanced energy savings recommendations and was closely monitored by the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale. It uses passive solar power for heating and active for hot water. New techniques for exploiting passive systems were developed. It is made up of three four-storey buildings whose layout forms a square.
The apartments, mostly four roomed, spread out from a central north-south axis. This axis groups the energy producing rooms of each dwelling (kitchens, bathrooms etc). The south extremity has a glass veranda and the north an insulating glass buffer area.
This layout enables:
• Habitants take advantage of the heat accumulated during the day.
• A very varied use of apartments according to the composition and the wishes of each family.
The whole construction is entirely made of pre-fabricated reinforced concrete sandwich panels with high thermal insulation.
