The new Infrax-building, recently occupied, received yesterday evening the public award for most innovative building of 2009. The numerous innovative solutions, integrated by the design team CrepainBinst - VK ENGINEERING, make of this building an example of energy-efficiency and sustainability.

In the context of the Kyoto Protocol, 2020challenge sets oneself the objective to encourage innovative solutions of Belgian consultancy and engineering firms in construction. The organisation links a competition to this objective, created for the first time in 2009. In a first round, 16 projects were submitted, 5 of which were selected last month for the shortlist. The past couple of weeks, the public could vote for their favorite project.

The brand new Infrax main office also featured on the shortlist and, with its numerous innovative applications, made a convincing argument to the public as 'sustainable building'. Of the 2802 votes, 848 went to the Infrax-building. VK ENGINEERING took care of the building services and structural engineering, and came across the necessary challenges in this ambitious project. Having a global insulation level of K44 and an energy level of E60, the building can present some nice results. Thanks to a borehole thermal energy storage system, concrete core activation, reversible heat pumps, hybrid ventilation, photovoltaic cells, ... the energy consumption (-35%) and the CO2-emissions (-36%) of the Infrax building are reduced significantly in comparison to a standard office building.

VK wishes to thank everyone who voted for the Infrax-building.