The European Performance of Buildings Directive - Case Study: New Headquarters of the European Central Bank in Frankfurt am Main

Abstract

The EPBD was passed as a Directive in 2002 paving the way for national legislation, the German version of which is the EnEV 2007, passed in October 2007. These dates mark roughly the start and end of the feasibility and design phase for the design of the New ECB Premises. The paper aims to show how, in the absence of approved legislation, the client and design team have worked together to pre-empt legislative requirements before these were officially published in 2007. Lessons learned from the implementation of the new calculation methods required by EnEV2007 will be discussed and the adopted calculation procedure outlined. The talk is given from the perspective of a building owner/user. Lessons learnt from the operation of the client's existing buildings will be highlighted and shown how these were incorporated into the requirements for the new building.