On Thursday, 25 July, we attended the Brussels Launch Event for the Open House (OH) project.
As stated by the OH steering group… the OPEN HOUSE project aims to merge existing methodologies for sustainability assessment of buildings towards a common view. With the aim of being widely adopted in Europe, the OPEN HOUSE methodology is developed in a fully transparent, collective and open process, with extensive communication and interaction between all stakeholders.
The small Brussels workshop event marked the successful completion of this project, which is of considerable interest from technical, process and market viewpoints. The many actors in this field range from essentially commercial systems such as BREEAM, DGNB, HQE and LEED; to NGOs with a permanent interest in the area but no specific system; and finally to government-funded research groups set up to encourage the development of a common model of building performance assessment within a defined time frame.