Lintulahti – the first European site receiving LEED Platinum certification

A modern office building must adapt to a great variety of needs. Increasing demands for environmental efficiency influence construction work, the property-owners want to save on operating costs, employees need good work conditions, and employers appreciate flexibility in space layout that allows the premises to be adapted according to changes in business.

Halton’s innovative, adaptable chilled beams enable all of this – flexibly and efficiently. Halton’s technology was one of the factors that helped the Lintulahti office building, constructed by Skanska, to win its LEED certificate.
‘At Halton, we always start by listening to the customer. For instance, at the Lintulahti site, the architects were able to decide on the details of the chilled beams,’ explains Mikko Lietzen from Halton.

Easy adaptation of spaces
The adaptable chilled beams designed according to Halton’s concept enable easy and cost-efficient layout changes without interruption to use of the space. Such layout changes cost only a fraction of what they would in traditional systems. With the broad operation range of the chilled beams connected to constant‑pressure ductwork, only minor adjustments are needed for the air velocity, cooling, and outdoor air-flow rate of the chilled beams to meet the requirements of the new layout.

Adaptable chilled beams represent a fairly new technology even for Halton, which is among the very few companies in the world able to produce this type of system.

‘The first project was carried out with Nokia in 2007–2008,´ says Lietzen.

Top LEED classification
The Lintulahti office building received LEED Platinum certification in autumn 2010. This marked the first top-level LEED certification for an office building in Europe. The building, completed in summer 2009, was the first project Skanska Commercial Development Finland Oy carried out in Finland.

The Lintulahti project was the first LEED-certified project in Finland for Halton as well, although both companies have been involved in dozens of environmentally efficient projects elsewhere in the world. Skanska and Halton have several mutual projects in progress, and there is more to come.

The LEED system (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design), launched in 2000, is today the most common green building certification system in the world. The classification is aimed at reducing the environmental impact of construction and use of buildings, and at development of healthier working environments. Environmentally efficient buildings use up to 50 per cent less energy than normal buildings do, and also the amount of waste is considerably smaller.