Hotel Green Solution House is located in Rønne on the Danish island and popular tourist destination of Bornholm. It also serves as a showcase for sustainable and climate-friendly building solutions. This August, they’ll open a new wing with 24 rooms, a conference room, and a roof spa. It’s all built, clad, and insulated using wooden materials that will not only be CO2 neutral but climate positive.
— The idea is simple — we believe that climate positive architecture combines good design and good business. Today destination tourism has got multiple dimensions. The hotel is providing a blueprint for a climate positive future, and that experience is a destination worth travelling for, which ultimately makes it a good business for our client, says Kasper Guldager Jensen, architect, partner 3XN, and founder of the firm’s sustainability-driven green think tank GXN.
How do you do to make it climate-positive?
— The building functions like a carbon bank, meaning that sequestered carbon in the wood structure, wood cladding, and wood insulation overseeds the embodied carbon in the remains of the building materials, tells 3XN’s PR Manager Cecilie Østerby, continuing,
— Beyond using wood wherever it is possible we’re also working with reworking local material waste streams like upcycled glass tiles with a local artist and stone dust from the local granite wreck.
How’d you describe the wing’s design?
— It’s what we call Scandinavian honesty. True in its material and with circular aesthetic where buildings joints and layers are visible.
”Everyone talks about it — we build it”
According to the International Environment Agency, the construction industry accounts for about 40 percent of the world’s CO2 emissions, with steel and concrete alone being responsible for 16 percent. Hotel Green Solution House’s Director Trine Richter hopes to show the way forward towards designing and using other building materials.
— Even though the industry is having a hard time right now, we are full of expectation that the Danes will continue to spend their holidays in Denmark, and that companies will continue to demand meetings and conferences with a sustainable set-up. We are excited about the prospect of setting new standards for Danish commercial construction with this new climate-positive building, where the load-bearing structure will be made from wood. Everyone talks about it — we build it, she says.
Cecilie Østerby, will you continue to work with carbon-negativity in other projects?
— Yes, carbon transparency is becoming the new benchmark in sustainable architecture. We are currently also developing a net-zero carbon highrise in London.
How do you see the future for this kind of projects?
— We see a future where climate-positive buildings become highest value. Where success is measured in both economical and environmental performance.
