The Luleå Pilot is City Culture House

Luleå House of Culture

Luleå is the northern metropolis of Sweden and was the cultural town district of 2007. The building was finished in 2006 and in January of 2007 the opening took place. The building holds a Library, Concert hall, Restaurant, Café, Art Gallery, Tourist Agency, Conference and Office area. Its contemporary architecture is noticeable especially in the library: an open space in three floors with views over the town and the bay. With 13 900 Square meters of public area and 6 000 Square meters of garage area, in 2008 the building with 80 persons in staff has received 564 231 visitors.

The house of culture is connected to district heating and to the district cooling system that works with the nature, using cold water from the river. The heat dump is in the town bay. The build have a high level energy management system but aim to achieve more energy savings involving and promoting users awareness. The Luleå team intends to divide the building in to different improvement different areas that will be equipped with the necessary measurement meters.

As of today, Jan 5 2010, we now have installed all the sensors and plan to start the actual tests in March. For the restaurant we have installed sensors measuring hot and cold water consumption and eletricity. For the office rooms (2 sections of about 6 rooms each) we measure the used eletricity.

For the entrance doors we have a possibility to measure any change of user behaviour. For elderly who finds it hard to open the entrance doors they can use a push button to open the door. BUT, many young people tend to do the same. During winter time with minus 20 degrees outside the entrance (2 consecutive) can stand open for 10 seconds when fast moving youngsters use the door opener during which a lot of cold air enters the building.

We will for the entrance doors measure how/if the user behaviour is changed when we introduce different methods to help the visitors take the right decision. This will be done by providing a “Help us save energy” sign on the doors and then by installing a delay for the door opener.