Manantia Ecobusiness Centre is a “A+” energy performance office building in Granada, Andalusia, inspired in the Arabic architecture of Alhambra palace.
Manantia Ecobusiness Centre is a “A+” energy performance office building in Granada, Andalusia, Spain. The design strategy was conceived to meet three fundamental requirements: comfortable and healthy workplace, flexibility and respect for the environment.

The basic design is based on the typical Andalusian central patio, inspired in the Arabic architecture of Alhambra palace, a contemporary approach of the Andalusian traditional house. The patio, apart from ensuring natural lighting, is the “heart” of the house acting as a climate regulator element, useful both in winter for heating and summer for cooling purposes.
Granada has a typical continental-mediterranean climate, with hot and dry summers and cold winters.
Main Features:
• Design according to LID (Low Impact Development), appropriate guidelines.
• Reuse of water and gray water, efficient gardening equipment,
• 1.000 m2 Mediterranean low water demand green roof reduces 15% cooling needs in summer.
• Reduction of GHG by passive systems, energy efficiency, renewables, use of water as thermo-regulators bodies and geothermal heat pump 127 m depth.
• Low environmental impact certified building materials.
• Ventilation optimization, control of pollution, thermal comfort enhancement, sun shading and natural light maximization, and high performance artificial lighting regulation.
• SCADA Integrated control system.
• Ventilated façade.

This way, the granted A+ performance has been confirmed.

Resources needed

• The total cost was 780.840€ (517,11 €/m2) compared to an ordinary reference building of 411.257€ (272,35 €/m2). +90% additional cost.
• Pay-back period of additional cost is 7-8 years.
• IRR > 10% (Internal Return Rate) after year 15.

Evidence of success

The Manantia building performance was tested during 2013-2015 showing a perfect matching with the previously estimated performance (A+), with energy consumption and CO2 emissions reduction of 78%, compared to a benchmark building.

The consumption profile shows that +50% of energy demand comes just from ventilation and transport of air,much more than heating and cooling needs.
Employees report much better working confort.

Total affected surface: 2.890,92 m2
+450.000 kWh saved every year

Difficulties encountered

Initial larger investment could hamper the investment. A+ buildings demand higher investment costs that need to be financed.

Potential for learning or transfer

Buildings sustainable design depends completely on the local weather profile. Therefore, it shall be done taking carefully local climate severity. Thus, this model could be fully transferable in similar climates (from Mediterranean to Continental climate) but could be not recommended in other climates.

Most of these features could be also directly implemented in existing buildings.

Some renewable sources are not available depending on the region. We recommend considering other equivalent solutions to gain similar results, e.g. if solar radiation is low, using biomass for heating water.

Manantia’s working conditions ares much better than in ordinary buildings and increase productivity at work and quality of working life. This reduces health problems and ergonomic problems for workers and production costs, as work sick leaves, for the companies.

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Project
Main institution
Sustainable Costruction Cluster of Andalusia
Location
Andalucía, Spain (España)
Start Date
January 2012
End Date
June 2013

Contact

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