"Umsicht" Award embedded in NEST wall
NEST celebrates its first birthday
NEST is now definitively a "living lab": not only are the existing offices and residential spaces occupied in the Meet2Create and Vision Wood units, but numerous visitors stream into NEST every day for tours, events, meetings or workshops. "Over 10,000 people visited the NEST in the last 13 months," said Empa’s Deputy CEO, Peter Richner, in his brief retrospective at the event. More than 120 events were organized by the NEST partners.
A tour of the building showed the partners the latest developments. At the construction site for the Solar Fitness & Wellness unit, most of the work that can be seen from the outside is complete. Behind the scenes, however, workers are putting all their efforts into commissioning the spa facilities. In DFAB HOUSE, the construction robot "in situ fabricator" from the National Center of Competence in Research (NCCR) “Digital Fabrication” is working on a load-bearing, form-free concrete wall. One of the first elements of the HiLo unit can be seen on the south side of the top platform. Here, ETH Zurich researchers will adapt a versatile solar facade to the local conditions. In addition to the tour, a brainstorming session led by NEST managing director Reto Largo allowed the partners to voice their needs and suggestions for ways, in which NEST can support them in navigating the big issue of "digitalization in the construction sector."