The TOBEEM project, which focuses on the viability of the current system for designing low-cost and low-energy offices buildings in Madrid by 2020, attempts to shed light on the problem of high energy consumption by office buildings. The project is directed by AIGUASOL and co-founded by 10 private and public entities.

The object of the TOBEEM project is to determine the reasonable economic and energy limits that can be placed on energy-efficient office buildings in Madrid and to establish reliable design criteria for achieving those limits. Hence, the main objectives being pursued are as follows:

• To evaluate and model the importance of the different factors that affect the energy life cycle of office buildings, paying special attention to the real construction and operating conditions of the buildings.
• To develop the tools and skills which, as a result of a systematic analysis and vision of the different elements to be considered for these types of buildings, lay the preliminary groundwork for office building sustainability.
• To define guidelines and methodologies   for synthesising energy-related knowledge, in language that is comprehensible to the parties involved and focusing on the initial design phases, which can be used as a script for the design and use of these types of constructions.
• To quantify and demonstrate the importance of the correct management and use of office buildings and to foster the participation of the different parties in the initial design phases of these types of buildings.
• To quantify and parameterise the ratio between energy and economic costs based on how office buildings are designed, managed and used.

It is our understanding that the attainment of these objectives will contribute to other environmental, market, technological and academic objectives related to the problem at hand. The objectives are limited to a specified geographical framework: Madrid, under the current regulatory conditions as they relate to the design of cost-effective and near zero emission buildings mandated in the European Directive, EPBD 2010.