Roof garden

Green roofs improve our environmental and living conditions. The roof garden of Hotel Nijmegen-Lent filters harmful substances from the air and holds on to precipitation, which considerably reduces peak discharge. The design for the extra green space is fully dependent on local precipitation during all seasons; this is why we specifically chose an assortment of blooming plants and herbs that are suitable for this. Animals also find their way to this natural spot.

Bee hotel

The insect hotel on the roof garden was specially developed to accommodate various insects. In the pinecones and loose bits of wood, particularly spiders and insects such as ladybirds and earwigs will settle. The various pipes form a pleasant place for solitary bees to leave behind their eggs. Bees first leave behind pollen in the pipe of the insect hotel. They then put in an egg and close the room. The bees then repeat this ritual of pollen and egg until the pipe is full. The pipe is then closed from the outside. When the first laid egg hatches, the larva feeds on the pollen. When the larva emerges as a bee it waits until the way out is free. When the last laid egg has hatched, the exit can be opened and all bees can go outside

"Bemmel Blue"

A total of 280,000 bricks were used for the plinth building, the car park and the hotel tower, all laid by hand. During the “Room for the River Waal” project the dike near Nijmegen-Lent was extended 350 metres inland to make space for a secondary channel of the Waal. This secondary channel offers extra capacity for water drainage, so there is less damming up. The clay that is dug out during this project is used for, among others, making the bricks used to build the hotel. The bricks were manufactured in Bemmel; hence the name “Bemmel blue”.

Nesting boxes for swifts

Research has indicated that swifts like using installation blocks as nesting boxes. These installation blocks were specially developed in cooperation with the Swallow Consultancy to create new nesting places in buildings. During the construction of Hotel Nijmegen-Lent 20 nesting boxes for swifts were realised at the northeast side of the low part of the hotel.

Maternity boxes for common pipistrelles

Inside, the box is separated by various walls, creating four spaces. These various spaces are needed because bats live and nurse in small colonies. In addition, this box has gauze along which bats can crawl inside. Two small bat maternity boxes were built into the façade of the plinth building.

Kitchen Air Technology (KAT)

KAT is an integral and innovative climate installation for industrial kitchens that guarantees minimum energy use.

The hot air from our kitchen is cleaned and reused. The KAT system uses a special liquid that is atomised in the kitchen installation’s extraction channel. The liquid almost fully consists of natural products. The greasy vapour and aromatic substances bind to the liquid and no longer bind to the   channel’s surfaces. The KAT filter catches the liquid, enabling heat from the clean air current to be transferred to the cold supply air. This saves us up to 80% heating requirements. With this, KAT minimises the fire hazard and deodorises the air up to 90%.

Interclima Ocean Tech OCT 500

The Interclima Ocean Tech OCT 500 heat pump is used to ventilate and heat the hotel.

Heat pump TT68

The TT68 is a high temperature heat pump (electric) with substantial higher efficiency for the generation of tap water and CH water. Together with an intelligent controlled energy management system the TT68 provides optimum energy efficiency for the benefit of the production of high temperature tap water and heating (70ºC). This leads to an improved energy performance of 40% in the built-up environment and newly built buildings, compared to competitive high temperature heat pump technology. And up to 50% - 60% energy performance improvement compared to existing buildings that generate heat with a modern CH installation.