International. The project, which ends now, was launched in 2010 financed by the 7th Framework Program for R&D of the European Union and has had the participation of Visesa, a public company dependent on the Department of Employment and Social Policies of the Basque Government, along with 17 other European partners.
Open House has aimed to develop a methodology for assessing the sustainability of buildings common at European level, which complements existing ones, and which allows the evaluation and certification of sustainable buildings in an effective way.
Buildings contribute a large part to European energy consumption, hence the importance of betting on improving their sustainability. The tool developed Open House allows to measure the sustainability of a building from the environmental point of view, incorporating, unlike other tools, the social and economic evaluation, and considering the entire life cycle of the building.
This web tool will be freely accessible and easy to use, and applicable throughout the European Union. Likewise, the use of the Open House methodology in buildings allows obtaining a European sustainability label.
For the definition of this methodology, the Open House project has opted for an open consultation process in which a large number of agents of the construction process from all over Europe (research centers, public bodies, builders, engineers, etc.) have been involved.
At the level of the Basque Country, Visesa has coordinated several work packages within the project, one of which includes the contribution of the UPV-University of the Basque Country by organising a seminar at the Higher Technical School of Industrial Engineers of Bilbao. Visesa has also had the support of Ihobe in the development of the application of the Open House methodology to Green Public Procurement.
It has been chosen to incorporate the different methodologies for the evaluation of sustainability existing at national, European and international level (such as LEED, LENSE, BREEAM, GBTOOL or DGNB), improving the indicators that these methodologies contemplate, incorporating others not yet resolved such as accessibility, weighting of the weight of the indicators, and variables such as types of building, types of users of the methodology, climate, etc.).
Now the Open House project is closed, however, there is a great interest on the part of the partners, including Visesa, to continue delving into the development of the tool, for its dissemination in the professional field of construction and for the awareness of all the agents involved in the construction process for the sustainability of the buildings.
For more information see: http://www.openhouse-fp7.eu/
