Casa SN House (the initial letters of the two owners Sara and Nicola Berlanda) is Italy’s first Living Building Challenge registered project.  The home will be built in Trento, Italy close to the gorgeous Lake Garda.

The site was a former greenhouse, and thus the owners will demolish the current structure and work to remediate the land (concrete basements, small metal structures, canopies, irrigation components). They will then construct a one-story residential unit in conjunction with the existing underground floor, which will be used as a warehouse.

The respect for the environment is a topic that has always been at these two owners’ hearts, and after attending a few Macro Design Studio events they decided to pursue the Living Building Challenge.

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Casa SN initially was registered with LBC 3.0, but after the release of the 3.1, the design team, including Andrea Rigo, architect, and Matteo Rigo, MEP engineer has decided to switch to the newest version. The project is pursuing the Petal certification, including the performance areas Place, Energy and Beauty.

The design team will focus on realizing a house that will produce one-hundred-and-five percent of the project’s energy needs through on-site renewable energy, a goal that seems feasible to the team. The Living Building Challenge far exceeds the European Union’s standard for construction as outlined in the current directives on energy efficiency.

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The team is currently evaluating strategies to meet the Energy and Water performance areas. “In these weeks, explains Carlo Battisti, we are investigating the materials available in Italy to see if LBC-compliant solutions are available. This part of the design process is very motivating because it gives us the opportunity to start the discussion about LBC principles with manufacturers, which will hopefully drive innovative changes.”

The design process of Casa SN is in full swing, and the homeowners expect to complete the project sometime during 2017.

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Macro Design Studio provides sustainability consulting services and helps clients to go beyond compromising the environmental, social or economic spheres. Since 2014, Macro Design Studio’s owners Carlo Battisti and Paola Moschini also began attending Living Future to learn more about Living Building Challenge (LBC) philosophy and to achieve Living Future Accreditation. In the Spring of 2015, the two launched the Living Building Challenge Collaborative: Italy and organized the 1st edition of REGENERATION (the second one has just ended last April), the European design contest for young architects and engineers entirely based on LBC. Their hard work now begins now to bear fruit as the first Italian LBC project registered earlier this year.

For further information: info@macrodesignstudio.it

Written By

Carlo Battisti

Carlo Battisti has a degree in Civil Engineering from the Politecnico of Milan and twenty years of experience with construction companies. Carlo has a Masters in Management and Organizational Development from MIP, the Business School of Politecnico of Milan. He is a LEED®, Living Future and WELL Accredited Professional.