Her Majesty Queen Máxima opened the new home of the Charity Lotteries in Amsterdam.

Photo: Sigrid van Aken (Postcode Lottery Group) with Queen Máxima.

The opening is the final act in a two-year renovation project in which a vacant and neglected building in Amsterdam has been transformed into the most sustainably renovated building in the Netherlands. In line with their mission of contributing to a fair and sustainable world, the Charity Lotteries have created the most sustainably renovated building in the Netherlands.

READ OUR STORY: The most sustainably building

The renovation has been carried out according to the highest attainable standard of the BREEAM-NL (2014) assessment directive for sustainable renovation. According to the latest version of this directive, the Charity Lotteries’ building ranks highest as a renovation project. This has been established by an independent BREEAM assessor on the basis of the organisation’s latest guidelines for measuring sustainability. The building was designed by Benthem Crouwel Architects, the interior architects D/DOCK and Loudon Living. The building work was carried out by contractor J.P. Van Eesteren.

Sustainable innovations
The property incorporates sustainable innovations such as PHYSEE’s electricity-generating PowerWindows, a Postcode Lottery Green Challenge winner. In 2016, they were awarded the top prize in the Postcode Lottery’s sustainability competition in the presence of Queen Máxima. The property is heated and cooled by means of a heat-cold storage system.

In addition, the roof is fitted with 949 solar panels that generate approximately 300 MWh of electrical energy per year. This is enough to provide for all the building’s electricity needs, making it energy neutral. Rainwater is collected on the roof of the building and used for flushing the toilets and irrigating the roof gardens. The rainwater system provides for 37% of the building’s water consumption.

Queen Maxima with Laetitia Griffith, Michiel Verboven and Gerdi Verbeet