SIEMENS

It’s summer in London. The few stubborn clouds that remain in the sky are slowly giving way to sunshine, which bathes the still-wet Royal Victoria Docks in a warm glow. A bizarre-looking shape protrudes from a skyline of residential buildings, hotels, warehouses, cranes, and the harbor basin — a sweeping structure made of glass and steel that recalls the works of the Cubist movement.
From under the building’s pointed corners, its smooth surface reflects the surrounding area in all of its numerous facets: the silvery water of the port, the green parks, and the red-and-white cable cars carrying passengers to the nearby O2 Arena.
The roof of this unusual building is covered with photovoltaic panels that collect sunlight and use it to generate electricity. Meanwhile, the sprawling shape of the upper part of the edifice protects the lower levels from excessive sunlight, thereby preventing the building from heating up too much.
Nothing has been left to chance in the “Crystal” — the new Siemens urban sustainability center that is meant to harmoniously combine state-of-the-art technology with sophisticated design and utilize every bit of energy it can exploit. “The Crystal is one of the world’s most sustainable buildings,” says Project Manager Dr. Werner Kruckow from the Siemens Global Center of Competence (CoC) Cities. “It’s a fully electric building that burns no fossil fuels whatsoever. In addition, it completely recycles all of its process water and uses every drop of rainwater it collects. We also monitor all of the building’s data to ensure that we can operate the structure as efficiently as possible.”

The inside of the Crystal is all about sustainability as well. It’s a model for the future of cities and all their associated challenges. That’s why the Crystal, which covers all aspects of life in cities, houses the world’s biggest exhibition of ideas for sustainable urban planning.
Buildings now account for roughly 40 percent of global energy consumption. What are the best strategies for reducing their environmental footprint? How can we reduce pollution, conserve the Earth’s resources, and prevent our cities from suffocating in traffic chaos in the future? The Crystal, says Kruckow, will not only give its visitors answers to such questions, but also demonstrate what can already be accomplished with technologies that are available today. The best example of this is the spectacular building itself, which utilizes the most advanced technologies throughout its almost 7,000 square meter interior.
From the moment Siemens began planning the Crystal, the goal was to achieve the highest possible certification on the basis of LEED and BREEAM — two stringent standards for environmentally friendly and sustainable design and architecture. This placed huge demands on the architects and designers. Nevertheless, the Crystal is meeting these demands. It uses roughly 50 percent less energy and emits around 65 percent less CO₂ than similar office structures.

This has been made possible by the interaction between individual building technologies, as well as between the building and its surrounding environment. “The special shape of the Crystal makes it an outstanding rainwater collector,” says Anokhee Shah, an environmental engineer at the Arup consulting firm. “Water is collected on the roof and then passes through several filters before flowing into a giantic underground tank. Membrane and carbon filters and UV radiation are used to purify it until it has the required quality for drinking water.” This sophisticated technology from Siemens, along with London’s famously reliable supply of rainwater, ensure that 85 percent of the building’s drinking water requirement can theoretically be met using rainwater. Some of the water is also heated by solar-thermal installations on the roof, which cover approximately 20 percent of the Crystal’s hot water needs. Nor is used water channeled into sewers; instead, it’s collected and purified again for use in toilets and for watering the building’s gardens. The Crystal actually has its own wastewater treatment plant for this purpose.
The building supplies not only its own drinking water but also its own heat, which it obtains from the natural environment. “When we have to cool rooms in the summer, we channel the heat out of the building and into the ground below,” says David Richards, an Arup employee. “Then, in the winter, we extract the heat from the earth and use it for the building.” The pipes for this process, which extend 150 meters below the ground, enable the system’s heat pump to supply 100 percent of the building’s heat requirement, around two thirds of its hot water, and also roughly two thirds of the energy needed for the air conditioning system.
The Crystal covers 20 percent of its electricity needs with the help of its rooftop photovoltaic units; the rest comes from the public grid. Rapid developments in the photovoltaic industry posed a challenge here. “Up until the last minute, we had planned for modules with an efficiency rating of 17 percent — but then new panels came on the market that had efficiency ratings of 19 percent,” Richards explains.
It’s also important to use electricity as efficiently as possible — which is where Siemens’ Desigo building management system comes in. Desigo uses a weather station on the Crystal’s roof and numerous building sensors to collect up-to-the-minute information on interior and exterior temperatures, room occupancy, air quality, and much more. It can then, for example, determine whether it makes sense to naturally ventilate rooms via windows, or if heat should be turned off in unused offices. This reduces both costs and energy consumption, which is important for LEED and BREEAM certification.
The contribution made by architects to the building should not be underestimated. In order to ensure optimal use of solar energy, they distributed the building’s glass elements in such a way as to ensure that the interior is flooded with daylight but doesn’t get too hot in the midday sun. They also utilized a lot of recycled materials, while nevertheless making sure that as little material as possible went into the construction of the Crystal.
Night is falling in London. The last workers and visitors leave the Crystal and head home. As soon as the temperature falls below 20 degrees Celsius, the building’s windows open automatically, allowing fresh air to enter. This air also cools a massive concrete slab underneath the building, which helps to cool the air in the building’s interior the next day. It all adds up to a remarkably pleasant example of how all buildings might someday be.