Austrian Green Planet Building Award

Award for the Markas Headquarters in Bolzano

Green workplace
The energy-efficient office building is approached across a generous public forecourt with trees and a pool of water. An open and intensely planted “garden level” – a biological air conditioning unit and oasis of calm that lends its unique quality to several floors of the building – floats at a height of 14 meters above several “vacant” floors. A spiral staircase rises from this richly planted garden to the staff restaurant, which marks the real starting point of the building volume. The garden contains a total of 1,800 new plants.

A structural concept that creates space and light
The special, V-shaped façade structure facilitates a flexible open-office concept and high levels of natural light. The 485 windows ensure that 58 % of the usable space enjoys a daylight factor of over 2.0. For those few days with little sun the entire building is equipped by tunable white LEDs, whose color changes throughout the day according to the natural lighting rhythm.

Certified Klimahaus
The combination of a switchable low temperature system in the form of heating and cooling ceilings and controlled mechanical ventilation, which supplies conditioned air according to need via floor outlets and convectors, ensure an excellent spatial climate and user comfort. The intake of outside air from the planted and shaded external areas, where the air is much more suitable than at roof level, is particularly efficient. Further energy efficiency measures include the automatic solar protection and the use of a heat pump with an annual degree of effectiveness of 141 %.

Due to the combination of the high quality design and the sustainable building services concept, the Markas headquarters has already received a number of awards: In 2019, the office building received Klimahaus A Certification and was also the first building in Italy to be awarded WELL Gold Certification. The headquarters received the German Design Award in 2021, and now, in 2023, the Austrian Green Planet Building Award.

Austrian Green Planet Building Award
Energy efficiency and the supply of renewable energy are the focus of the Austrian Green Planet Building Awards (AGPB). The award transfers the objectives and strict criteria of the Austrian climate protection initiative klimaaktiv for the construction and real estate sector onto the international stage and honors work carried out internationally by Austrian design offices, consultants, construction companies, and production facilities in the area of sustainable building.
AGPB is a joint initiative of the Federal Ministry for Climate Action, Environment, Energy, Mobility, Innovation and Technology and ADVANTAGE AUSTRIA.

