AlmaVerde Village & Spa wins award for Best Eco-Development at OPP Awards for Excellence 2011

Friday, 04 November 2011

AlmaVerde Village & Spa wins award for Best Eco-Development at OPP Awards for Excellence 2011

AlmaVerde OPP Awards for Excellence 2011

AlmaVerde was the only mainland Portuguese company to win at this year’s OPP awards, which were announced at the Property Investor Show & OPP Live held on 13-15 October at Excel in London. The winners were selected by a panel of industry professionals, who marked each entry against a set of strictly-defined criteria.

The judges commented: “AlmaVerde is an outstanding environmentally-sustainable resort, conceived and constructed to the highest imaginable standards, and operated with integrity and professionalism. The company has a clear passion and conviction for integrated and enlightened sustainability that is as broad as it is deep. AlmaVerde could easily be a worthy winner of the best eco development in any scheme, over and over again. A template for how to do it properly.”

AlmaVerde Village & Spa is a 58 hectare residential tourism development in the Western Algarve with more than 80 villas now built to the same energy-efficient, passive design specification. AlmaVerde’s signature Coolhouse system brings cooled summer air into the house via underground tubes, helping to stabilize the internal temperature at a comfortable level, day and night. Independent monitoring has verified that energy savings compared to a conventional air conditioning system are in the order of 94%.

Coolhouse is one of a number of strategies employed by the architects of AlmaVerde’s eco-luxe villas with the aim of ensuring year-round thermal comfort, while keeping energy use and carbon emissions to a minimum. AlmaVerde’s off-plan villas regularly achieve an A+ rating for energy efficiency. This rating is currently awarded to less than 1% of residential properties in Portugal.

Passive strategies include a complete external insulation envelope and lots of thermal mass. Inner walls are formed from sun-dried clay (adobe) bricks, which are manufactured on site to minimise transport costs. The thermal mass of the adobe, as well as of the concrete structure itself, acts as a well-insulated store of radiant winter warmth or summer “coolth”, minimising the need for active heating or cooling.

OPP is the leading business to business media for the international real estate industry. OPP’s monthly magazine (both hard copy and electronic) is complemented by its weekly newsletter, by its website and by its annual trade exhibition. Companies use OPP to build the international sales networks required to succeed in today’s challenging environment. OPP is part of the Richmond Green Group.

The image shows a completed Villa Luz superimposed over an image of adobe bricks drying in the sun.

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