Sustainable wellness with solar energy

There is a growing need in our society for fitness and wellness, which generally incurs environmental costs and swallows up large quantities of energy. At NEST, the Empa and Eawag research and innovation building, a global innovation will be put into operation on 24 August: a fitness and wellness facility powered entirely by solar energy and the power generated by its users' physical exercise. The Swiss-Liechtensteinian building technology association, suissetec, made a significant contribution to the facility's development. The Solar Fitness and Wellness Unit's concept has two purposes: to substantially reduce the energy consumption of wellness facilities, and to produce the remaining energy by itself. It is part of NEST , the modular research and innovation platform on the Empa campus in Dübendorf, and it is enthroned on the building's uppermost platform. Two glass facades, each around eight meters high, are its eye-catching exterior features. But the architectural design by architect Peter Dransfeld is also spectacular on the inside: in the interior space, which is open throughout, three ellipsoids hover below the ceiling.