Different. Better. Building.
The Openly building system
For new build and refurbishment projects.
Europe-wide.
Openly concept
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The longer a building stands, the more sustainable it is.
Buildings should be planned in such a way that they have a useful life of 100 years or more and can be maintained sustainably. Who has ever thought of choosing a façade with a 30-year service life?
Openly relies on skeleton construction, i.e. as few load-bearing walls and as few installations in the floor as possible.
At the end of its life cycle, an Openly can be completely dismantled and represents a raw material depot.
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Everyone knows that there is a huge loss of knowledge during each of the five traditional planning and implementation phases. And no one is changing it.
The Openly construction process envisages a project duration of 20 months from project start to occupancy.
Learn more about our construction process from our project managers.
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The construction industry is responsible for around 25% of annual CO₂ emissions, which is around eight times more than all air traffic. In light of this challenge, OPENLY builders are committed to significantly reducing emissions from new construction and renovation. We achieve -50% or 6kg CO₂/m², putting us among the world leaders.
New discipline in architecture
The future of architecture lies in the development of buildings that are realized as far as possible with natural building materials and pursue a plus-energy focus.
Components with the lowest possible carbon footprint (avoidance of emissions)
materials are recyclable and are installed accordingly
And ideally CO₂ is stored long-term .
Material selection without bias
OPENLY has no material bias and is independent of the construction lobby. The selection of building materials is based exclusively on the principle of the greatest possible benefit for the environment and society.
Wood, concrete and steel should be used specifically where they offer the greatest added value.
Where these materials are not absolutely necessary, their use should be avoided.
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Concrete is the fundamental building material and is particularly indispensable for basements. The Openly building system consistently relies on concrete types with significantly reduced CO2 emissions (e.g., Progresso from VICAT) as well as CO2 removals using biochar in concrete from our partner CarstorCon.
Applicable worldwide and certifiable by us.
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Optimal indoor climate thanks to innovative construction
OPENLY’s zeichnen sich durch hervorragende Isolationswerte (< 0,17) und eine hohe Speichermasse aus. Dadurch reagiert das Raumklima zeitlich verzögert auf äußere Temperaturschwankungen und bleibt stets angenehm.
Natural temperature equalization The heat stored in summer supports the heating of the rooms in winter. Conversely, the storage mass ensures pleasant coolness in summer. This means you benefit from a balanced indoor climate all year round.
Comparison with traditional stone houses The feeling of space is reminiscent of entering an old stone house in Tuscany on a hot summer's day - with the decisive advantage that OPENLY buildings remain pleasantly warm in winter.
Healthy building ecology and ideal humidity The diffusion-open walls , made of hemp concrete, for example, ensure a constant humidity of approx. 40% in winter. This promotes a healthy living environment and meets the highest ecological standards.
See for yourself Visit our pilot project "Valley Widnau" and experience the exceptional living and working environment on site!
Openly construction costs: 3000 CHF/EUR m2 GFA
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Practiced and implemented sufficiency
Minimal building services, heating costs no more for an Openly than for a "Hüsli"
Approximately 25% window area on the facade, minimal shading (solar slider)
Minimal cellars and basements (mobility concepts, etc)
Compact facade, no architectural extravagances.
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Not everything is being redesigned. Our serial hybrid timber construction relies on standards such as a clay ceiling from one of our system suppliers for €250/m². This fits on any truck and is cost-neutral compared to a conventional concrete ceiling.
The same applies to prefabricated interior walls and an absolutely cost-neutral 45cm exterior wall made of hempcrete from www.cancret.com, which is manufactured locally by a local timber builder. No foils, no additional layers. Only the inside and outside are plastered on site. Et voila.
and best of all: the indoor climate is improved, the environment is protected and CO2 is stored.
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We achieve this through the Openly planning and construction process, reduced building services, standardization, prefabrication, and economies of scale in purchasing.
These cost advantages compensate for the sometimes higher component costs.
Commission an Openly preliminary project to obtain a detailed cost calculation.
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We calculate this as follows:
Finished price / Raw material price
For natural building materials, this is often in the range of 4-5, and for the Pope's rammed earth walls, it is even 10-15.
A factor of 2 to 2.5 is acceptable.
That is why we have developed our own components with our subsidiary Cancret.com and have negotiated purchasing prices across Europe.
Here are a few examples:
Catalog price clay building board /m2: 38
Purchase price from manufacturer: 17Catalog price 10cm cork insulation board/m2: 48
Purchase price from manufacturer: 29On the one hand, biogenic building materials in particular must be purchased in whole trucks and not in small quantities. On the other hand, you need to know how to put these components out to tender and what the finished component costs.
Openly Circulareconomy
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If an OPENLY engineered building is to be converted or demolished, the planning focus is already on the demolition.
OPENLY constructions are therefore predominantly plugged or screwed together. This means that all components can be completely dismantled and removed.
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The open structural design (always a skeleton construction) and the modular OPENLY standard dimensions allow for flexible repurposing of the buildings in the future. All walls can be removed without restriction, and an OPENLY can be expanded or extended upwards as desired.
This well-designed system is particularly suitable for schools and daycare centers, where teaching methods, class sizes, and usage requirements are constantly changing.
In addition, thanks to its fully bolted and plugged construction, an OPENLY can be dismantled and reassembled at a new location.
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Some of the components in the OPENLY Valley Widnau project already come from re-use. The Swiss innovation leader in the circular economy, EBERHARD, has developed a database for reused iron carriers in collaboration with OEBU.
Around 30 tons of HEB and HEM steel girders were used for OPENLY Valley Widnau, around a third of which were re-used. These steel girders were previously installed in buildings or excavations and are now being reused.
The steel beams act as modular elements in timber box girder ceilings filled with clay. This combination allows the materials to be used where they can optimally develop their respective strengths. This leads to savings in timber and enables jointless and beamless timber ceilings without additional underlays or overlays.
When planning OPENLY Valley, further re-use potential was also taken into account: For example, 400 tons of clay, 1 kilometer of copper pipes and 300 cubic meters of wooden beams can be reused directly in other projects without further processing.
Our carbon footprint takes all relevant factors into account - from transportation from the EBERHARD warehouse to assembly on site. Thanks to the extensive use of Re-Use, we achieve an almost CO2-neutral construction method.
This approach is in line with our holistic carbon management and actively supports the achievement of net zero targets through the use of biogenic building materials and sustainable negative emission technologies.
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The OPENLY building system places particular emphasis on recycling the remaining components. High-quality materials retain their value even after their useful life has expired. We call this a raw material depot.
These include, for example, raw materials from solar cells, glass, hemp fibers, copper, iron, and steel. Recycling these materials makes a sustainable contribution to resource management, because the world is a closed material cycle.
Openly ZERO emissions
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The central component of an Openly is the airbox, which is controlled by a plug-and-play solution using software and a thermostat.
The building services are integrated using EISBÄR SCADA on a ModBus basis.
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Solar panels on 95 percent of roof surfaces are almost indispensable for new build and renovation projects. In addition to the ecological benefits, they represent an economically attractive business case, particularly in view of rising energy costs.
As a rule, the available roof area generates enough energy to achieve the PlusEnergy standard.
The calculation is clear: a solar system in Central Europe produces an average of around 200 kilowatt hours per square meter per year. The energy yield is higher in southern Europe and correspondingly lower in the north. This amount is roughly equivalent to the annual electricity consumption of a dishwasher.
Thanks to the excellent building physics, an OPENLY building only requires around 10 watts per square meter for heating, which makes it much easier to create a PlusEnergy house. Further details on building physics can be found in the corresponding chapters on this website.
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As the electricity is generated by the house's own photovoltaic system, the use of an electrically powered heat pump makes particular sense.
The choice of energy source, such as geothermal probe, ground baskets, seawater or air, has a significant influence on the efficiency of the heat pump. Depending on the system and time of year, a heat pump achieves a coefficient of performance (COP) of between 2 and 4. In summer, this can even be as high as 6 for air heat pumps.
In simple terms, this means One kilowatt hour (kWh) of electricity fed into the grid can generate around 2 to 4 kilowatt hours of thermal energy.
In addition, the integration of storage systems, such as water tanks, allows heat to be stored and used efficiently when surplus energy is available - on sunny days, for example.
Furthermore, the heat pump should be operated during the day if possible in order to use the PV electricity.
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The heating energy requirement for an OPENLY engineered building is around 10 watts per square meter. This very low value opens up a wide range of possibilities for the provision of heating energy in the building.
Traditional systems such as radiators or underfloor heating can be used, as can alternative solutions such as infrared panels (where permitted) or innovative electric tile stoves. The aim is always to keep building technology as simple as possible in order to avoid high costs, maintenance requirements, and limited service life of the installations.
Cooling in summer is an increasingly important aspect. Architectural measures for sun protection should be prioritized here. The use of air conditioning systems or underfloor cooling is only recommended as a secondary consideration. OPENLY buildings provide sufficient energy in summer through their solar systems to operate such systems efficiently.
Shading is provided by the Solar Slider, which was developed in collaboration with SCHENKER Storen.
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In Central Europe, residential buildings often consume more energy for heating water than for heating in winter.
Instead of a conventional boiler, OPENLY uses a central fresh water station with storage tank, which is operated by a heat pump. The hot water is produced on demand and directly at the point of use, ensuring consistently high water quality.
The showers integrated into the prefabricated wet rooms from Dade Design use a closed, decentralized system based on Joulia technology, thereby saving around 30 percent energy.
OPENLY Valley Widnau goes one step further: all wet rooms are prefabricated and installed as complete elements in the timber construction. If the floor plan is changed at a later date, these wet rooms can be easily moved using a pallet trolley.
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Energy storage comprises two central aspects:
A) Seasonal storage for overproduction in summer and demand in winter (currently still unresolved)
B) Day and night storage
An efficient approach to energy storage is to use surplus solar energy to heat storage water for heating and hot water during the day - in contrast to the previous practice of heating these storage tanks at night with cheap nuclear power.
For short-term storage, we rely on a battery system that is connected to the hybrid inverter of the photovoltaic system and also offers emergency power capability. The Valley Widnau pilot project is practically self-sufficient from March to October.
At around 500 euros per kilowatt hour, the current costs for home batteries are still too high. In the future, electric vehicles are expected to be used as overnight battery storage. We therefore currently recommend cautious investment in home batteries.
In the area of seasonal storage, we intensively examined hydrogen (H2) but rejected it due to a lack of financially and technically feasible solutions in the context of apartment buildings. Compressed air or spring storage could be considered as alternatives.
Energy storage always requires a certain amount of space. That is why we at OPENLY attach particular importance to planning spacious technical rooms so that future storage solutions can be easily integrated.
