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Sustainable building benchmarks
VMZINC & HQE®

VMZINC and HQE®

The HQE® method is a French sustainable building benchmark that can lead to certification. This benchmark aims to minimise the impact of new and existing buildings on their environment and to optimize the health and comfort of users while ensuring effective, stringent management of the project.

The HQE® method

The HQE® method is a French sustainable building benchmark that can lead to certification.

This benchmark aims to minimise the impact of new and existing buildings on their environment (based on multi-criteria, multi-stage assessment) and to optimize the health and comfort of users while ensuring effective, stringent management of the project.

The HQE® method is made up of 14 targets classified in 4 sub-domains:  Eco-construction, Comfort, Eco-management & Health.  

VMZINC and HQE method

Durable, recyclable, low energy consumption (compared to other rolled metals), maintenance free, FDES (French Environmental and Health Declarations), etc. VMZINC products have many advantages enabling them to contribute to the environmental quality of buildings. When used in building envelopes or, less frequently, as an interior solution, VMZINC solutions contribute more specifically to 4 of the HQE method's targets:

Sub-domaineHQE Version 20/01/2012
target		VMZINC advantage

Attainable
level

Accessible
point
Eco-constructionTarget 1: harmonious blending of the building with its immediate environmentExtent of SRI possibilities according to designers' requirements (SRI AZENGAR > 35)TP2
Target 2: Integrated choice of building products, systems and processes
  • Certifications of aptitude of use for the majority of VMZINC systems
  • Lifespan proportional to the lifespan of the building (50 to over 100 years)
  • Disassembly is possible and more or less easy according to the type of system
  • Little or no maintenance
  • Numerous FDES
  • French manufacture
  • AFSSET COV/Formaldehyde protocol (decree of 23 March 2011 on regulatory labelling)
B


P


TP

TP

TP

B

P





1

5

3

3

3

Target 3: Low impact building site

  • Little or no zinc scrap (< 5 %) which is 100 % recyclable
TP6
Eco-management

Target 4: Energy management

  • Compatibility of VMZINC systems with the most effective insulation systems (performance, thickness)
  • Surface thermal bridges are minimized in VMZINC systems
  • Easy to integrate PV systems with VMZINC systems
TP*

*

3


* (French Haute Qualité Environnementale method) B = Base, E = Effective, VE = Very Effective

*VMZINC solutions contribute to the thermal performance of the envelope but alone do not enable a number of points to be obtained.


Examples of HQE buildings

Numerous buildings have been designed with the HQE® method and using VMZINC solutions. Two such buildings are presented in this section, one of which was subject to a quantitative environmental assessment using an Environmental Building Quality calculation tool called Elodie.

Toulouse Lardenne Office Building - HQE® and BBC certified

Architect: DR SERAU Architects
Surface aspect: ANTHRA-ZINC
Technique: VMZINC Standing seam
Surface in zinc: 3700 m2 on the roof and facade for 8700 m2 of living space

Luis Ortiz Junior High School in Saint Dizier

Architect: Jean-Philippe Thomas
Surface aspect: QUARTZ-ZINC
Technique: VMZINC Standing seam
Surface in zinc: 1980 m2 on the roof and facade