The adaptive solar façade is located on the façade of the NEST unit HiLo and, among other things, provides shading for the office space behind it. Image: Roman Keller

In total, 39 submissions were received for the "Watt d'Or". An expert jury chaired by National Councilor Susanne Vincenz-Stauffacher evaluated them and nominated 17 projects for the final round. In Bern, the jury finally selected the winning projects in four categories. 

The winner of the category Buildings and Spatial Development is the adaptive solar façade developed by the Chair of Architecture and Building Systems at ETH Zurich as part of the HiLo project. HiLo is an office unit in NEST, the research and innovation building of Empa and Eawag. The façade consists of lightweight, movable solar modules mounted on a substructure. Thanks to an intelligent control system, they automatically follow the sun and optimize electricity harvest. Depending on the outside temperature, they can either offer shading or let as much sunlight as possible into the room. The startup Zurich Soft Robotics is now working on bringing the innovation to market under the product name Solskin.