Refurbishing a kindergarten building with minimal environmental impact in Koprivnica
In 2018, the Croatian city of Koprivnica needed to replace the Kindergarten Loptica. It had originally been constructed in 1982 as a prefabricated wooden ground floor building with a solid foundation, and in 1995 a ground floor building annex with solid foundations was added. The building accommodates about 170 children and had never been renovated. It had high energy consumption levels and was approaching the end of its life.
Instead of demolishing the building entirely, Koprivnica opted for Green Public Procurement (GPP) and aimed to maintain as much of the physical structure as possible, while refurbishing and improving it. In this way, Koprivnica aimed to save construction materials, increase the longevity of the building, increase energy efficiency and significantly improve the quality of childcare and the learning environment along with indoor space functionality.
- The final impact of the tender and the chosen solution was an improved building with an extended lifetime of 25+ more years.
- The solution also resulted in 61% savings on heating energy and 66% savings on primary energy and thus fewer CO2 emissions each year. It reached an energy performance of 44 kWh/m2 per year and generated EUR 4 863 annual savings on heating energy.
- By upgrading the building, which was considered to be near the end of its useful lifetime, rather than demolishing it and constructing a new one, the whole building with a net surface of 820 m2 was not taken to a landfill.