A wooden house with a laboratory in it has been built in the Botanical Garden of  the Petrozavodsk State University. It accommodates university specialists and their colleagues from the Murmansk Technical University who are going to study the efficiency of modern engineering solutions during the construction of wooden houses in the Arctic.

“Scientists from the Petrozavodsk State University and the Murmansk Technical University have developed a model laboratory for testing ‘green technologies’ and assessing their efficiency in northern territories, under the international project KO 1089 Green Building in the Arctic Region, part of the Kolarctic trans-border cooperation program,” the University’s press service said in a statement it released.

A similar laboratory that will carry out work in the Murmansk Region will duplicate two parts of a wooden house. One part was built using wood-frame technology, and the other using double-insulated log cabin technology.

The latter option seems more appropriate for Arctic areas than single-insulated log cabins. However, it is impossible to really use this method in the Murmansk Region since there is little timber there. The walls of the structures are filled with sensors that measure the room temperature as well as the humidity levels. Heat loss is also monitored.

“Experimental facilities, built under the project, will be used to assess the efficiency of various kinds of walls and fences and utility mains, as well as alternative energy sources and Smart Home devices. The model laboratory will be used to teach University students involved in various research projects,” said Assistant Professor Alexandra Kuzmenkova who is supervising one such program at the Petrozavodsk State University.

Experts from Finland’s University of Oulu, Norway’s University of Tromso and Sweden’s Umea University will be involved in the research.