Apartment building in Bennau
“Kraftwerk B” (Power Station B), the architects’ name for the 7-apartment building, is next to St. Sebastian’s church in the middle of Bennau, a district of Einsiedeln in central Switzerland. Shortly after completion the new building became nationally known as a pilot project for solar self-sufficiency. According to the architects’ calculations it derives 10% more energy than its occupants need from the sun. And “Kraftwerk B” is one of the first Swiss buildings to meet the Swiss Minergie-P-Eco standard. As well as prescribing energy efficiency comparable with a passive building this standard also defines upper limits for resource use by building materials and minimum levels for interior climate, sound insulation, daylight use and other factors that are often not paid sufficient attention by a purely energy-based evaluation.
