Hotel Gela Fun&Sun

The building body is following the shapes of the ground, opening oneself to the expanse created by the sloped terrain and the endless sea of hills up until the horizon. Generous glazing areas give unrestrained view and connection to the outside. The generous glazing areas and the open spaces through two levels up until the roof provide daylight and natural ventilation in the accommodations. It has been a basis design parameter to have a maximum daylight level and it has been reached by use of daylight from minimum two orientations in all public zones and in more of the rooms. The air quality in all public areas is controlled by the ventilation which optimize and keep the CO2 level and humidity low.

The building is designed to match at least the requirements of a Passive house build. The current Bulgarian legal building requirements for a new build regarding energy efficiency are exceeded, hence characteristics of building envelope (including solar energy gain through glazing), energy gain on site via warm water collectors and photovoltaic solar power plant on the roof. The weather conditions in Gela: over 280 clear sky days yearly!

A second, future phase includes the installation of a battery (TESLA Powerwall), that would keep and provide solar power during night.

Special attention is also given to the quality of the heating and ventilating technic, energy efficiency and low noise emissions. The final need of energy will reach a level of 10 kWh/m2. The supply of electricity is based on 50% renewable energy in the grid and the supplementary renewable energy are supplied with PV, solar panels installed on the roof.

There is a great will from the architects and the investor to produce a well thought through building regarding environmental performance and eco balance. Many of the chosen building materials are natural (like wood, sand and stone), building systems for the exterior and interior are selected to be certified according last EU standards for production and waste management. Sand, wood and stones are directly extracted from the close-by manufactures. Another important aim to keep amount of wastes low is to reuse material from the building site directly in the building construction. For example, framework wooden panelling is firstly used to produce fairfaced concrete with a unique look of the wooden structure imprint and afterwards the same wooden boards are implemented in the roof construction.

100% of the used water is filtered and together with the rain water is collected and reused for sanitary needs (toilets) and gardening.