Things might be a little slow for the WA building industry right now, but a Perth start up focussed on developing new building technology has just cracked a new market in Europe.
Pro9 Global has inked a deal worth $20 million dollars to clad residential towers in Croatia with a thermally insulated facade it has developed as a modular, prefabricated system.
Pro9's Global Managing Director Daniel Jukic said the new contract in Croatia is a big breakthrough for the WA company, who will work with strata company Stano-Uprava to install its cladding at 150 residential towers in the coastal city of Split.
"About three quarters of European buildings were built prior to 1975. It's an enormous challenge for countries in the European Union to improve existing structures to meet modern energy efficiency standards," he said.
"The city of Split is hit by strong Mediterranean winds in the winter, which blows facades away from the buildings. Stano-Uprava approached us a year ago to develop a robust solution which is weather durable, energy efficient and has high fire resistance."
Pro9 said the material it has created is fire resistant, with pictures from its European manufacturing facility showing the material subjected to intense heat in testing.
If successful, the pilot project could lead Pro9 to install its system across Stano-Uprava's 11,000 residential buildings in Croatia - and the strata company is also looking to secure EU climate change funding to support the work, with buildings accounting for 40 per cent of Europe's energy consumption and 36 per cent of its CO2 emissions.
"We are hoping this will be a case study that shows the rest of Europe that Pro9's fa??ade is a compelling solution for improving the energy efficiency of old buildings," Mr Jukic said.
"Pro9 Global is transforming sometimes centuries-old structures to bring them into the 21st century."
The contract order will be filled by Pro9's European manufacturing facility, with the company now seeing to build one on Australia's east coast to go after the residential market.
