The project received the Norwegian State Prize for Building Quality in 2022, honouring its exceptional integration of research, design, and sustainability. It was also awarded the Concrete Hammer ('Betonghammeren') Prize in 2022 by Bygg21 for best practice in construction and design. Built to the ZEB-COM standard, the laboratory offsets all embodied and operational carbon emissions through on-site renewable energy production over its lifetime.
A true zero emission building
Using a range of custom panel dimensions and shapes, along with an invisible and low-profile flat mounting system, the solar facade is optimized to catch as much sun as possible to achieve the ZEB-COM objective – to recover the entire environmental investment in materials, construction and operation over the next 60 years. There has also been integrated solar cells in the transparent vision glass, enabling a partial influx of daylight into the interior of the building, and letting the residents know about the electricity-producing exterior cladding, by playfully revealing the high-performance PV technology that is otherwise hidden within the solar facade.
