Socrates is supposed to have said: "The ideal house is warm in the winter and cool in the summer". The fact that this is also possible today without conventional heating systems has now been proven by the municipality of Saint-Jean-d'Arvey. On 23 June it is opening its new community centre, complete with kindergarten, library and town hall - built as a low-energy building from regional wood. It is the first public building in the French Alps made from wood with the certificate of origin "Bois des Alpes". This renewable building material comes exclusively from the French Alps and the wood will be used to build another 40 dwellings to the low-energy standard in this municipality of 1,500 people in Savoy.
Energy-efficient building will become mandatory by 2021 at the latest. Newly constructed buildings must have practically zero or very low energy requirements, with the necessary electricity and heating coming substantially from renewable sources. Public buildings must meet these criteria as from 2019, specifies the European Union directive on the energy performance of buildings, which comes into effect in member states on 9 July.
Source and further information: http://batimentboislocal.blogspot.com (fr), http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ, http://europa.eu/legislation_summaries/internal, www.territoiresforestiers-rhonealpes.eu (fr)