#361 Bolueta Passive Tower, Bilbao, Spain. Architect: Varquitectos , 2018.

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In 2012 VArquitectos won the architectural competition for the design and project management of 361 housing units. The building was designed to be efficient but was far from complying with the Passive House standard. The heating and hot water generation were meant to be provided by district heating, for the 1,100 units built throughout the entire Bolueta neighborhood. There was a problem when the district heating was ruled out because of the crisis. The promoter still wanted an efficient building, with an A energy rating. At that point, VArquitectos began studying the viability of employing the Passive House standard as a way of providing the efficiency desired by the client. It is a residential tower, a highrise. This means that some of the solutions will be derived from the characteristics of the tower itself, and from its intended use. The materials employed had to be the typical materials used in this kind of construction, while also being approved by the technical criteria of Visesa based on their experience building thousands of social housing units. The structure is made of concrete, with structural concrete walls, including the elevators, for achieving the needed strength to stand up to the wind. All the aspects that were improved from the original design made the budget increase by around 3%. In addition to the gains regarding comfort, air quality, absence of noise, future increase in value, etc., it was also important to highlight the economic savings for the tenants of these housing units, especially when we consider that most of them will be people with low incomes. This project shows that it is possible to build to the Passive House standard for social housing in Spain, and in a tower typology. The type of construction follows the traditional techniques used in the area, which was important for the economic viability of the project.