Commercial buildings of basic to medium standard are hardly ever designed by a high quality of innovative building services engineering. In the project Sunny research! a sustainable building design with high energy performance was developed. The aim was to adapt the aspects of Renewable Energy, thermal comfort and wellness in work.

Total Quality Design and Assessment is an instrument to increase the demand for high quality buildings; "high quality" in terms of improved comfort as well as decrease in negative environmental impact, at affordable costs. Application of TQ design targets requires additional and new knowledge, thus increasing the level of know-how with regard to the issue of "sustainable buildings".

A checklist considering priority, construction progress and actors is elaborated to serve a future-oriented selection of materials, energy carriers, design and construction within building sanitation, under a deliberate consideration of the involved actors from the construction branch

Analysis of existing passive cooling concepts, examination of various other passive cooling concepts and a comparison with conventional air conditioning systems. The elaboration of practice-oriented tools for the planning and implementation of the passive cooling concepts selected.

The many housing estates of detached houses in Austria built in the times of economic crisis between the wars and post-war as part of publicly funded housing programmes are the starting point for this research project. The aim is to offer detailed guidelines with basic planning principles for the renovation of these housing estates with detached houses, aiming to reach the standard of a low-energy house or a passive house.