Park building Island Zwijnaarde

Ambitious practical case on circularity, flexibility and profitability

POM East Flanders and PMV want to erect a Park Building on Eiland Zwijnaarde. The bar is high: the building with services and offices of about 10,000m² must become the reference in terms of community building, circularity and flexibility - with attention to a healthy profitability.

POM East Flanders is joining forces with KU Leuven to tackle 2 aspects of the ambitious building project:

1) build the principles of circularity and flexibility into a classic financial investment model.
This translation will have an impact on the size, nature and timing of the costs and benefits in the investment analysis. Based on the adapted financial model, KU Leuven will develop a freely available calculation tool that can also be used by other building owners, investment companies, designers (architects and engineers), governments, etc...

2) Draw up high-quality specifications and select a suitable construction partner.
Public tendering of construction projects has become increasingly complex over the years. The classic award at the lowest price will not lead to the desired result for this project. An innovative specification is central. The translation of expectations on circularity, adaptability/flexibility into selection and award criteria, an award guideline and a model agreement are essential. The existing tools (GRO, C-Calc, TOTEM, ...) are closely examined for their suitability as award criteria. Via BIM, the project partners want to gather as much information as possible about the materials and techniques used. Evaluation of the offers and consultation with the candidates constitute a major challenge with the ultimate goal of awarding the contract. Also the possible forms of cooperation for both the financing and the realization of the building will be examined, which allows well-founded choices. In short, it will be an extremely instructive and interesting project. POM East Flanders and KU Leuven are therefore happy to share the lessons learned.

Image: Tech Lane Ghent Image quality plan: visualization, INBO, 2015