Insights & stories

Recticel Insulation and Living Tomorrow are joining forces to build a new innovation campus and a Hotel of the Future. In this high-tech concept, both thermal and acoustic insulation solutions from Recticel are used

Tuesday, March 16, 2021. Day on day 26 years after Bill Gates visited our first campus. What moment is more suitable to anchor our plans for the future?

The construction of the Living Tomorrow Innovation Campus has begun. We investigate how the building process is evolving today and in the future. Xella is present as a trendsetter in new building with its advanced building systems.

Energy efficient renovation requires a well thought-out approach to the entire building envelope. As far as new buildings are concerned, houses will be built to be increasingly energy efficient in the future, partly as a result of the increasingly stringent EPB regulations. For the existing housing stock, however, there is still a lot of work to be done!

A major challenge for our future buildings is to reduce the environmental impact, as our current method of construction leads to too great an environmental impact to stay within the carrying capacity of the earth with our building needs.

In Zelzate, Belgium's first charging station was opened at an office of engineering firm Sweco. Electric cars are used there to store solar energy so that it can be used elsewhere or during dark periods.

Within 18 months, we will open a new Innovation Campus that will be built with 80 partners from different sectors. Among them, we have many construction partners whose innovations demonstrate a variety of solutions in terms of sustainability. The common factor: a long term approach which has a direct impact on the problems we face as society. These companies are fulfilling their role as role models, so we are particularly proud that they are involved in our project.

As a partner of Living Tomorrow, Scanbie will be responsible for the development of a digital version – a digital twin - of the new campus. At very regular intervals, the construction process will be digitally mapped via 3D laser scanning. Sensors will collect real-time data which can create predictive simulations.

GO4ZERO's ambition is not only to make existing capacities more sustainable, but also to provide a concrete solution in the fight against global warming. Holcim Belgium wishes to invest in new infrastructure. By using the best available technologies, operational, economic and sustainable performance can be obtained.

With flat roofs and terraces, space for insulation is often very limited. This makes it difficult to comply with strict insulation requirements. Ultra-thin vacuum insulation panels offer a solution for this. Thibaut Behaegel, Sales Engineer Flat Roof at Recticel Insulation, explains how, using two different construction problems as examples.