In this interview, Dirk E. Hebel, discusses the urgent need to shift the construction industry from linear to circular processes. Hebel explains how the construction sector can reduce resource waste and CO₂ emissions by adopting a circular economy. He highlights the importance of “design for disassembly,” using pure materials, and reusing entire buildings and components. Through his vision, Hebel introduces an innovative approach to the future of architecture and construction, focusing on sustainability, resource efficiency, and circular value creation.

The children’s quiz “1, 2 or 3” teaches knowledge in an entertaining and playful way. Bright minds and nimble legs are required. The guessing teams give their answers by jumping on one of the answer fields.

There are over two million species of mushroom worldwide. And you can not only eat mushrooms, you can even use some of them to build houses. Prof. Dirk Hebel explains how this works. The roots of fungi form a very strong tissue. Reporter Leonore uses this so-called mycelium to produce a kind of leather at the Fraunhofer Institute in Potsdam. She finds out from expert Hannes Hinneburg why wood chips are needed for this. Mushrooms are a truly miraculous material. They can not only be used to make leather, but also a meat substitute for plant-based steaks. And even ants grow mushrooms in their anthills as food. But why some mushrooms glow in the dark, spread black liquid, or how they even manage to take on cleaning tasks in nature, Elton wants to know from the guessing teams.

“Primary materials are becoming increasingly rare, especially in our resource-poor region of Central Europe. The circular building method can therefore be an answer to the question of how we can still allow future generations to build according to their needs, ideas and values and thus also be able to realize a dignified life.”

Prof. Dirk E. Hebel explains the principle of the “anthropocene depot” using the example of the “RoofKIT” in a video interview: the city, the built environment, becomes an urban mine from which raw materials are recovered.

The stacking module designed and constructed for the “Solar Decathlon 2022” student competition, which Prof. Hebel supervised as a faculty advisor, has caused a sensation since winning the largest building competition for universities because it has implemented a large number of central architectural themes: Circular economy, adding storeys, biological building materials, timber construction, the use of renewable energies to supply electricity… None of this as a “promise for the future”, as Prof. Hebel emphasizes, but as a module that can already be implemented at this point in time.

Prof. Hebel is one of numerous high-profile guests who will be speaking at the anniversary event of the “Auf Holz bauen” education initiative at the Haus der Architektinnen und Architekten in Stuttgart on December 4:
akbw.de/angebot/kammerveranstaltungen/drei-jahre-bildungsoffensive-aufholzbauen

Due to the complexity of the topics, RoofKIT will be presented in two films. The next part will highlight the student team members’ view of the project.

Without biodiversity, human existence on planet Earth would not be possible. However, this biodiversity has been declining for far too long, and at an alarming rate. This realisation unites the curatorial team of the Frankfurter Kunstverein, which has invited the Senckenberg Biodiversity and Climate Research Centre and Frankfurt Zoo to collaborate in the form of an interdisciplinary partnership. The result is the new exhibition titled Bending the Curve – Knowing, Acting, Caring for Biodiversity, which alludes to the concept of ‘Bending the Curve of Biodiversity Loss’. The exhibition explores how the negative trend can be halted – or even reversed. This issue is also the focus of the artistic and scientific perspectives presented in the exhibition, which illustrate paths and ideas for ecosystemic recovery and aim to catalyse a turnaround in the biodiversity crisis.

The exhibits and their creation demonstrate where a shift in thinking and action, as well as a new prioritisation of values, may lead to. Built upon the foundation of knowledge, action and care for biodiversity, as formulated in the sub-title, the creators and their works advocate a departure from anthropocentrism towards the concept of transformative ‘naturecultures’, as coined by Donna Haraway. The forward-looking stance of the artists showcased in Frankfurt also stems from their presentation of not just sustainable but regenerative art. Unlike sustainability, which aims to preserve resources and minimise negative impacts, regenerative art focuses on co-existence with ecosystems. This necessitates aligning the coordinates of daily life in a way that creates a liveable social environment while simultaneously contributing to the recovery, renewal, and perhaps even complete health of the environment.

Bending the Curve – Knowing, Acting, Caring for Biodiversity
13.10.2023 — 03.03.2024

Further information: https://www.fkv.de/ausstellung/bending-the-curve/

In collaboration with the Senckenberg Biodiversity and Climate Research Centre and Frankfurt Zoo

Co-Creation Art: Prof. Franziska Nori
Co-Creation Science: Prof. Dr. Katrin Böhning-Gaese

Alexandra Daisy Ginsberg / Fernando Laposse / Julia Lohmann / Maurizio Montalti / MYRIAD. Where we connect. / Fraunhofer Institute for Applied Polymer Research IAP / Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Faculty of Architecture / Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior / Walter R. Tschinkel / Frankfurt Zoo

Which new materials can be used to construct buildings in an environmentally friendly and natural way? Julia Nestlen gets to the bottom of this question in SWR “Science Talk” with Professor Dirk Hebel.

“I am glad that the circular economy is becoming increasingly important alongside the climate issue. It’s necessary that we develop new technologies, that we plan better and smarter for deconstruction (of buildings) and not only for the operation phase.”
Prof. Dirk Hebel

Giving science a stage: In the SWR series “Science Talk”, experts from various fields give exciting insights into their new research. Every week, a researcher explains in 30 minutes what science can say about a current topic – and what that means for people’s lives.

Will AI soon be building our houses? Artificial intelligence is also taking the architecture industry by storm. The internet is full of AI-generated fantasy architecture. Software generates images of houses and interiors from text commands that are real eye-catchers. And they do it in a matter of seconds. So will we soon no longer need architects? Or will AI become a useful tool?

Under the editorship of Anette Plomin, Prof. Dirk E. Hebel and other players in the construction industry are confronted with the issues of AI. Prof. Hebel sees the alternative in construction not primarily in AI, but in the recycling of building materials. In Zurich, he uses the Urban Mining and Recycling Unit to show what a flat could look like that is completely recyclable and compostable. He can also well imagine using AI to better manage building materials and resources in the future, but for him it is clear that only humans can initiate the great processes of change in terms of sustainable and future-oriented building.

Due to the worldwide concrete boom, the granular raw material is becoming scarce. In an interview with Clemens Dörrenberg of the Frankfurter Rundschau, Prof. Dirk E. Hebel talks about the overexploitation of an embattled resource and how it could be replaced in construction. The article appeared in the FR7 magazine of the Frankfurter Rundschau on 23/24 September 2023.

Sand is one of the most sought-after raw materials in the world. The global demand for sand is gigantic and has tripled in the past 20 years. Sand is in the concrete of booming megacities around the world and is important in coastal protection. How do we have to build so that cities can continue to grow in the future?

This and many other questions are addressed in the current edition of Planet Wissen, “The battle for sand – new ways of dealing with the coveted raw material. In the second half of the episode, Prof. Dirk E. Hebel from KIT is a guest in the studio with the moderator Jo Hiller and reports on recycling-friendly construction, single-variety, degradable construction, and alternative building materials such as bamboo or mycelium.

In the article “How we build in the future”, the Helmholtz Association presents sustainable, climate-friendly solutions from architecture and construction research. In this context, Prof. Dirk E. Hebel presents the RoofKIT project of the KIT Faculty of Architecture as an innovative lighthouse project for circular justice, purity of types, recycling and reuse, and the resource-friendly handling of materials.

Concrete as a building material is then critically examined. Prof. Frank Dehn, Institute Director at the KIT Civil Engineering Faculty, is researching climate-friendly alternatives and the use of old concrete. In addition, other forward-looking topics such as the “sponge city” and the energy supply of future buildings are highlighted.

Read the full article here.

The new book by Gernot Minke entitled “Building with Bamboo – Design and Technology of a Sustainable Architecture” was recently published by Birkhäuser Verlag. In addition to material information and properties, it also contains application examples from research and practice. In the chapter “Reinforcing with Bamboo”, among other things, research projects of the Sustainable Construction Professorship at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology are presented.

In this report, arte investigates the power of mushrooms and visits various actors. A Swiss mushroom expert, for example, wants to restore polluted soils. Researchers are also working together with students on a biological packaging material made from mushrooms. Mushroom leather or stable insulation and building materials are also examined in this episode of Re:.

The reporters also visit the Solar Decathlon in Wuppertal. Prof. Dirk E. Hebel explains why the mushroom, as a biologically renewable raw material, could become an important component of the future sustainable construction industry within planetary boundaries and in line with the European Green Deal.

The Karlsruhe Institute of Technology is participating in the 2021/22 Solar Decathlon Competition in Wuppertal, Germany with its project RoofKIT. Designed as a top-up to an existing structure of the 19^th century in the old city fabric, it demonstrates a vision for the building industry: social adequate, energy positive and circular sustainable.

It is the unique character of the Solar Decathlon competition, that next to an overall design approach of a larger project, a characteristic element is constructed as a full scale demonstrator. Since 2020, more than 100 students from KIT within different faculties and under the leadership of the professorships of Sustainable Construction (Prof. Dirk E. Hebel) and Building Technologies (Prof. Andreas Wagner) worked on the project which cumulated in the construction of the House Demonstration Unit in May and June 2022 in Wuppertal, Germany.

Designed as a prefabricated module system with a 100% circular construction method, the unit proofs already today, that with current technology and design capacities, we are able to fulfill the requirements of the European Green Deal. No glues, no paints, no foams or wet sealants were used, so that the circularity of the building and its materials is guaranteed. In addition, only mono-materials were used for construction, meaning no composites or mixtures of materials are to be seen.

But RoofKIT wants not only show what is possible in the future: many building components and materials are taken already out of the urban mine and are used in their second, third or even fourth circle: wood from old barns in the black forest, the entrance door from a building of the 19^th century , windows from a demolished building in Basel, bathroom and kitchen sinks as well as fixtures from turn backs of fair exhibitions.

This circular approach only makes sense when it is powered by renewable energy. As the RoofKIT top-up is a new construction with a high energy efficiency standard, the total energy demand (including appliances and e-mobility) will be covered by solar systems on the building envelope. For solar harvesting PVT collectors are used which simultaneously provide electricity and heat, the latter serving as the source for a heat pump which feeds a floor heating system and hot water tank. The surface of the PV modules is colored with a special coating technology in order to merge with the copper roofing with almost no losses in efficiency. This important step is necessary to fully integrate solar panels into the design approach of future buildings. The overall light concept follows the idea of avoiding unnecessary fixtures where possible and using flexible hand-carried cable-free elements to illuminate only those areas where wanted. In addition, an artificial lighting system around the core delivers light with a luminous color adapted to the time of the day.

The unit sits on a scaffolding structure to demonstrate its character as a top-up design strategy. RoofKIT already today is a demonstrator for our future building culture and industry.

Project Credits:
Core student team KIT Karlsruhe: Patrick Bundschuh, Stefanie Christl, Luca Diefenbacher, Florian D’Ornano, Jonas Ernst, Dominic Faltien, Nadine Georgi, Aaron Harter, Johannes Hasselmann, Louis Hertenstein, Michael Hosch, Martin Kautzsch, Jennifer Keßler, Nicolas Klemm, Katharina Knoop, Sebastian Kreiter, Anne Lienhard, Michelle Montnacher, Fabian Moser, Friederike Motzkus, Jana Naeve, Saskia Nehr, Julian Raupp, Alexander Resch, Nicolas Salbach, Julian Schmidgruber, Natascha Steiner, Niels Striby, Dennis Sugg, Moritz Tanner, Sven Teichmann, Benjamin Weber, Vincent Witt, Immanuel Zeh

Project Leader: Regina Gebauer (Architecture) and Nicolás Carbonare (Building Technology)

Architectural Design: Faculty of Architecture, KIT Karlsruhe, Professorship of Sustainable Construction, Prof. Dirk E. Hebel, Regina Gebauer, Sandra Böhm, Katharina Blümke, Elena Boerman, Hanna Hoss, Philipp Jager, Daniel Lenz, Manuel Rausch, Daniela Schneider, Alireza Javadian, Nazain Saeidi, Elke Siedentopp with Michael Hosch, Benjamin Weber, Martin Kautzsch, Julian Raupp

Building Technology: Faculty of Architecture, KIT Karlsruhe, Professorship of Building Technologies, Prof. Andreas Wagner, Nicolás Carbonare, Isabel Mino Rodriguez with Martin Kautzsch (cooperative partners: Klaus Rohlffs, ip5 Karlsruhe; Prof. Jens Pfafferott, University of Applied Sciences, Offenburg; Martin Wortmann-Vierthaler, Heinrich-Meidinger-Berufsschule, Karlsruhe, David Wölfle, FZI Forschungszentrum Informatik)

Structural Design demonstration unit: 2hs Architekten und Ingenieur, Prof. Karsten Schlesier HCU Hamburg with Johannes Hasselmann and Jonas Benjamin Ernst

Structural Design circulation, foundation and safety elements: Faculty of Architecture, KIT Karlsruhe, Professorship of Structural Design, Prof. Riccardo La Magna, David Andersson

Structural Design scaffolding system: DOKA, Alexandra Sell und Markus Wientzek

Light Design: Faculty of Architecture, KIT Karlsruhe, Professorship of Building Technologies, Prof. Andreas Wagner, Luciana Alanis with Erik Hofmann and Maikel Hollstein

Urban Mobility: Faculty of Architecture, KIT Karlsruhe, Professorship of Urban Design, Prof. Markus Neppl, Peter Zeile with Nicolas Salbach and Daniel Lenz

Feasibility & Affordability, Life cycle Assessment: Faculty of Economics and Management, KIT Karlsruhe, Professorship of Sustainable Management of Housing and Real Estate, Prof. Thomas Lützkendorf, Daniel Rochlitzer with Regina Gebauer and Julian Schmidgruber

Material Library: Elena Boermann und Sandra Böhm mit Anna-Lena Kneip

Corporate Design and Communication: Philip Brücher, Nadine Georgi, Dominic Faltien, Lukas Großmann, Jennifer Keßler, Katharina Knoop, Michelle Montnacher, Saskia Nehr, Sanda Sandic, Natascha Steiner, Katharina Blümke, Daniel Lenz, Manuel Rausch

Fabrication demonstration unit: Kaufmann Zimmerei und Tischlerei, Reuthe, Bregenzerwald, Österreich, Matthias Kaufmann, Mario Meusburger with KIT students

Supported by: KIT Karlsruhe, German Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action, Holzbauoffensive Baden-Württemberg, Energy Endeavour Foundation

Sponsoring Partners:

 More information: www.roofkit.de and www.sde21.eu/de/

The magazine Haus und Grund Wuppertal published an article in its 10/2021 issue about two projects in the SolarDecathlon 2021, which will take place from 10 to 26 June 2022 on the Nordbahntrasse opposite Mirker Bahnhof. DETAIl also reports on the project of the Karlsruhe team RoofKIT in an online series entitled “A Future for Existing Buildings”.

The Solar Decathlon is probably the best-known international student competition on the topic of sustainable building and living. Among the projects published in this issue is Team RoofKIT’s vision for Café ADA in Wuppertal. RoofKIT is an interdisciplinary team of students from the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), in Karlsruhe, Baden-Württemberg. The student team consists mainly of architects and engineers from the faculties of architecture and civil engineering, geosciences and environmental sciences. The team works closely with professors from various KIT faculties as well as interdisciplinary and supporting companies. An interdisciplinary core team consisting of 12 students is responsible for project management and coordination.

Model of RoofKIT © RoofKIT, KIT

Team RoofKIT is developing an urban blueprint on unused land resources in cities: the roof surfaces. The goal is to understand the city as a social factory, urban raw material store and sustainable energy producer. How can we create socio-economically fair housing without destroying our natural resources? How can we transform the building sector so that it does not exacerbate climate change? How can we run a circular construction industry?

The team provides answers to these questions using the example of Café ADA, the famous Latin American dance and event venue in the Mirke Quarter. A construction kit is developed that can find an almost universal application in the urban context and is based on new (single-variety) construction principles and materials. The direct inward redensification of urban space not only has the potential to create new living spaces in the midst of existing structures, but also the chance to optimise a neighbourhood economically, socially and energetically in the long term. The integrated energy concept is also part of the architectural and urban design. In order to be climate-neutral over the course of the year, the RoofKIT system is based on various measures, such as the use of solar energy and daylight, natural ventilation or an improvement of the urban microclimate around the building through green areas.

RoofKIT sees the city as a depot and future supplier of materials. The challenge is to develop new technologies to transform these materials into a new generation of qualitatively sustainable (i.e. ecologically harmless, technically pure and economically attractive) building materials. For precisely this reuse of building materials, single-variety construction principles are being developed that aim at a circular construction method and enable problem-free deconstruction. This allows the state of “urban mining” (urban man-made raw material storage) to be understood as a transitional phase into a true circular economy in the construction sector.

The existing café use will be expanded to include a hotel area. The dance hall will be moved from the first floor to the second. In the resulting “urban gap”, an event space for music, theatre, dance and culture will be created. It radiates into the urban environment and offers residents and users a new attractiveness. The building is completed with two residential floors; the different-sized living spaces in combination with communal areas offer a high-quality living space.

More information about RoofKIT on their Website or their podcast Fighting 40%.

The Scientists for Future podcast features monthly conversations with scientists about climate change, sustainability and a livable future.

The building sector is responsible for around 40% of CO2 and greenhouse gases in Europe. The Scientists for Future took this initial situation as an opportunity to join forces with the Architects for Future and dedicate an episode of their podcast to the topic of architecture. To do so, they invited Prof. Dirk Hebel from Professorship of Sustainable Construction at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology.

“We have to understand our buildings as material stores,” he describes. In addition to the question of raw material consumption and the circular economy, the current podcast episode also talks about urban planning and the new European Bauhaus. Svenja from S4F and Leonie from A4F Kassel also discuss with their guest how architecture and our coexistence must change for a sustainable future. Because it turns out: How we build is not only a technical question but also a cultural one.

The current episode of the Scientists-for-Future-Podcast “Sustainable Architecture” is available here.

In this year’s third edition “BAUEN” of the KIT magazine for research, teaching and innovation “lookKIT”, three different articles report on research and other topics taking place at the Professorship of Sustainable Construction at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology.

Under the title “Realizing recycling-oriented Construction”, Dr. Stefan Fuchs conducted an interview with Prof. Dirk E. Hebel, Sandra Böhm and Daniela Schneider from the Professorship of Sustainable Construction. The topics of the conversation range from the protection of resources to the problem of land consumption and the need for new forms of living. According to the researchers, in order to anchor the circular economy in construction, it is also necessary to use biological materials in order to close the resource gap.

The spread of such materials can be promoted by including environmental costs in materials of fossil origin. In addition, architects have to start planning again with traditional and other simple joining techniques in order to ensure the correct use and quality-preserving dismantling of materials. Hebel, Böhm and Schneider place great hopes in the introduction of a material pass to anchor digitization and documentation in the construction industry. Finally, the author also points out a video with Prof. Dirk E. Hebel on the question “Why build sustainably?”.

In “The Future City as Resource Supply” by Sandra Wiebe, the RoofKIT team demonstrates that it is possible to integrate the building sector in a functioning circular economy. Taking part in the Solar Decathlon Europe 2021/22 the team is developing a concept for heightening the roof of Café ADA in Wuppertal. In a reduced on-scale version, they will realize their project on the Solar Campus in Wuppertal in June 2022.

The project is composed of three important topics of the implementation of circular economy in the construction sector: to use the built environment as a new mine, to enable buildings to be fully disassembled after use and to harvest energy sustainably in order to reach climate neutrality. According to the head of project Prof. Dirk E. Hebel, RoofKIT’s design is of relevance to novel, socially centered living spaces supporting future-oriented urban society.

An online version of the article is available here. Find out more about the RoofKIT team here.

Two architecture students campaign for a sustainable future of the construction sector as a whole with their newly founded local group of the “Architects for Future” in Karlsruhe. Alisa Schneider and Elena Boerman both did their master thesis on adaptive reuse projects at the Professorship of Sustainable Construction in summer 2021.

The author of the article, Regina Link, points out their central focus of a radical turnaround in the construction sector. In the name of their Germany-wide association, the two graduates call on people to consider the entire life cycle of buildings and thus break through the linear system of construction. Society must become aware of the value of buildings and the resources they contain: The goal must be to make building and rebuilding a circular system in which waste no longer exists and materials are used in and removed from buildings for reuse and recycling.

An online version of the article is available here. Find out more about the association Architects for Future here.

The climate podcast WELTWUNDERKUGEL from SWR deals with topics related to the function of our planet. The makers are interested in understanding what defines our earth and the climate and how we can hand over a healthy earth to future generations.

The current episode “A home for the future – climate-friendly building and living” is about sponge cities, high-rise forests, eco-villages and biological building materials. In the search for the “Home of the future”, voices from science and society are heard and various projects on the topic are presented by the SWR1 editor Christiane von Wolff.

In this context, Dirk E. Hebel from the KIT Professorship of Sustainable Construction addresses the idea of sustainable development. He also reports on the many possible uses of mushroom-based materials in the construction industry and on dealing with today’s building stock. “Garbage as a design error” is the keyword here: it is important to understand that the consistent recycling economy in the construction industry is the only way to seriously implement resource conservation in the construction industry.

Listen to the full episode here.

The podcast “Fighting 40%” was created as a part of the international competition Solar Decathlon Europe 21. The RoofKIT podcast team presents topics relating architecture and urban design, but above all sustainability and future-oriented thinking.

In the current second episode released on 10 Mai 2021, two podcast team members discuss about “Urban Mining” with Prof. Dirk E. Hebel, the Faculty Advisor of team RoofKIT.

Since the post-war period, we have been surrounded by an anthropogenic warehouse of over 50 billion tons of material. This warehouse grows every year by another 10 tons per inhabitant. Much of it is located in buildings. Wouldn’t this warehouse be a potential resource for the construction industry of the future?

Listen to the podcast episode on Campusradio Karlsruhe or on Spotify.
To find out more about Team RoofKIT, visit their RoofKIT weblog for SDE21.

The two architecture master’s students Alisa Schneider and Elena Boerman report in the KIT student magazine clicKIT about their activities in the local group of the nationwide association Architects for Future in Karlsruhe.

In their work, the two are committed to ensuring that the building industry experiences a sustainable and future-oriented turnaround. Among their demands as Architects for Future are the critical questioning of building demolitions, the increasing use of healthy, regional and climate-positive materials instead of cheap and foreign materials, circular construction and the perception of the urban mine as a storehouse of materials, as well as the preservation and creation of living spaces by avoiding new land sealing.

Read the full article in the KIT student magazine clicKIT here.

The Urban Mining and Recycling unit (UMAR) in NEST was listed as a showcase project of circular construction by the New European Bauhaus on 6th April 2021. The project shows how a responsible approach to dealing with our natural resources can also go hand in hand with an appealing architectural form. Life-cycle thinking has led the design process: all the resources required to construct the unit are fully reusable, recyclable, or compostable.

The Urban Mining and Recycling housing and research unit in NEST, the modular Research and Innovation Building of Empa in Dübendorf (Switzerland), is demonstrating what a paradigm shift in the construction industry reacting to the limitation of the world’s natural resources might look like. Turning away from linear material-consumption and towards an economy of material recycling, multiple use, alternative construction methods and the use of entirely separable materials – UMAR works as a material laboratory but also as a material depot. It is a proof that the responsible use of natural resources, the recycling of materials and modern architecture can go hand in hand.

The building design was created by Werner Sobek in collaboration with Dirk E. Hebel and Felix Heisel, Bernd Köhler and Frank Heinlein.

Visit the Urban Mining and Recycling (UMAR) website here.

Learn more about the New European Bauhaus on their website or on Instagram.

The current episode of planet e., a documentation series by ZDF, examines the state of sustainability in the German construction industry and shows perspectives for building with recycled concrete and products out of construction waste.

This is because the construction industry in Germany is responsible for more than half of the waste generated, accessible raw materials are becoming increasingly scarce, and the production of building materials such as cement causes greenhouse gases that contribute significantly to the warming of the atmosphere. Nevertheless, construction waste in Germany still ends up in landfills to a large extent. Only a few companies in Germany work in the sense of a circular economy when demolishing buildings and take the responsible initiative to recycle the resulting materials.

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Urban Mining and Recycling Unit, EMPA Zurich © planet e. (ZDF)

The editors compare German laws with those in other European countries and highlight what the German “Kreislaufwirtschaftsgesetz” could achieve. For example, in the Netherlands or Switzerland, sustainable construction with innovative building materials and assembling methods is particularly important in the construction of public buildings. In this sense, the Urban Mining and Recycling Unit of the EMPA in Zurich has been established, which is one of a few lighthouse projects of circular construction.

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Impressions of the KIT mycelium laboratory, Professorship of Sustainable Construction © planet e. (ZDF)

Dirk E. Hebel, sustainability researcher, architect and professor at the Faculty of Architecture at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, was also involved in this project. He calls for a clear and responsible change of course in the German construction industry. The increased use of recycled materials and renewable raw materials as the basis for the building materials of the future, such as the fungal mycelium he is researching with his team at the Karlsruhe laboratory, are inevitable and are imminent for the construction industry in Germany.

Watch the full episode of planet e. on ZDF here.

In a new episode of Xenius by arte, the hosts Dörthe Eickelberg and Pierre Girard set out in search of alternative building materials.

Up to now, the building industry has mainly used concrete and steel. In order to be able to build more ecologically and sustainably in the future, scientists are looking for alternative building materials. And there are some innovative ideas. Mycelium, paperboard or popcorn – nothing is impossible!

The hosts also interview Prof. Dirk E Hebel about his research with mycelium as an alternative, cultivated biological building material. The mycelium is simply fed with biological waste and can be shaped into stable, pressure-resistant forms. In the Urban Mining And Recycling Unit, which was created in collaboration with researchers from the ETH Zurich, many other innovative, forward-looking construction techniques are also used in exemplary applications, which allow the sorted disassembly and the later reuse of all used materials.

In this episode of Xenius, some other ideas for future building materials are presented. For example, scientists of the Technical University of Darmstadt are researching a way to build houses out of cardboard without any additional wood coatings or protective foils. In Munich, a visionary architect is growing trees into each other in such a controlled way that load-bearing structures are formed that will support bridges or even entire houses years later. Prof. Alireza Kharazipour in Göttingen aims to replace plastic materials as much as possible with the renewable raw material corn.

Watch the full episode on arte.tv here.

Further information:
http://nest-umar.net
https://www.wernersobek.de
https://changelab.exchange

In the current 50th anniversary episode of “Die Sendung mit der Maus”, Armin Maiwald, one of the hosts, is looking for how people will live in the future. Therefore he visits the Urban Mining and Recycling Unit (UMAR) created by Werner Sobek with Dirk E. Hebel and Felix Heisel.

The building design demonstrates how a responsible approach to dealing with our natural resources can go hand in hand with appealing architectural form. The project is underpinned by the proposition that all the resources required to construct a building must be fully reusable, recyclable or compostable. This places life-cycle thinking at the forefront of the design: Instead of merely using and subsequently disposing of resources, they are borrowed from their technical and biological cycles for a certain amount of time before being put back into circulation once again. In that way UMAR functions simultaneously as a material laboratory and a temporary material storage.

After having visited UMAR, Armin Maiwald also takes a look at the mycelium laboratory in the Westhochschule in Karlsruhe. Here our researcher Dr. Alireza Javadian shows the TV host of the children’s program how the mycelium grows in the laboratory, how it is shaped and how resistant it is afterwards.

Watch the full episode of “Die Maus” on WDR here.

The KIT professorship of Sustainable Construction at the Faculty of Architecture is part of an exhibition and publication by the Association of German Architects BDA. In ten strategies, architects and urbanists present their concern for the existing building: taking care of the building stock, for growing social structures and for the continued existence of the earth. They invite you to read the permanence of what has been built and what has grown and plead for further thinking and careful repair of living spaces and living cultures. They show how new perspectives arise in the urban and regional context through networked approaches, through cooperation oriented towards the common good and through participation concepts. For the future, i.e. the buildings erected today, strategies for the circular use of materials and an openness to future requirements are being developed.

The exhibition of the Association of German Architects BDA was curated by Olaf Bahner, Matthias Böttger and Laura Holzberg. Exhibition design: Marius Busch – ON / OFF and Christian Göthner – lfm2 “Sorge um den Bestand” is a project in the “Experimental Housing and Urban Development” research program of the BMI / BBSR and is financially supported by the Federal Ministry of the Interior, Building and Home Affairs. Comprehensive information on the exhibition project can be found at www.bda-bund.de/sorgeumdenStock

more information here

An interview with the Dean of the KIT Faculty of Architecture Dirk E. Hebel and seminar leader Sandra Böhm of the Professorship of Sustainable Construction about their design strategies and the compatibility with materials science in architectural education.

The KIT Faculty of Architecture has a long tradition in understanding architectural design in close interaction with and in dependency on structural design, building construction, building physics, social studies and material science. The students deal critically and actively with the pressing questions of our times and are looking for ways to align their own actions with these findings.

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The focus at the KIT Faculty of Architecture is on integrated design, so that conceptional, ecological, economical, structural, physical, sociological, historic, artistic, communicational, urban, landscape and theoretical questions are understood and treated as a holistic interdisciplinary project in the design itself. Thus, design studios serve as a field of experimentation and students are given the opportunity to show and test their ideas and conceptions in innovations and experimental studies.

This also includes the rediscovery of traditional materials and their possibilities in terms of the synergy of tradition and innovation. In the research seminar “Bau auf!” held together with the Karlsruhe Majolika, the students dealt with the material ceramic and the possibilities of 3D printing.

The innovation platform “Changelab! Wacker KIT Innovation Platform for Pioneering Sustainable Construction” builds a bridge to cooperation with the industry and is intended to bring together students, architects, engineers, and construction experts who are looking for new approaches in the field of material development and construction methods for a circular economy.

Published in “DER ENTWURF – Magazin der DBZ für junge Architekt*innen und Ingenieur*innen”, edition November 2020, p. 14-17

An article at Spiegel-Online describing future scenarios of the building industry with Prof. Dirk E. Hebel. By Ulrike Knöfel.

more information here

Mushrooms are given little attention – but are they the secret rulers of the world? “PUR +” presenter Eric Mayer discovers new possibilities and also visits the KIT-MycoLab of Prof. Dirk E. Hebel and his research team around Dr. Nazanin Saeidi and Dr. Alireza Javadian to understand how a new class of building materials could be cultivated.

Prof. Dirk E. Hebel in discussion about a rising circular building economy.

A talk in “Zukunft Bauen” with Prof. Dirk E. Hebel (Sustainable Construction, Faculty of Architecture, KIT Karlsruhe) and Dr. Lamia Messari-Becker (Building Technology and Building Physics, Institute of Architecture, University of Siegen) about rethinking the construction industry and its bound building materials as a raw materials warehouse in order to preserve the earth’s resources and about the paradigm change in future architectural planning and construction.

The public German TV station ZDF films at the KIT MycoLab for their format PUR+. PUR + is the discovery magazine in the children’s and youth program ZDFtivi. Each episode deals with one topic. Reports, explanations, and experiments shed light on the topic from different angles. The program focuses on the experiences and assessments of children. At KIT, Eric, the protganist of the format, explores together with the team of Prof. Dirk E. Hebel and Nazanin Saeidi the idea of using mycelium as an innovative building material of the future.

KIT professor Dirk E. Hebel writes about Germany as a country with an incredibly large anthropogenic material store but with a lack of ideas how to use it. Our cities have the potential to be transformed into urban mines, to consumers and suppliers of resources. The challenge of an infinite cycle of resources lies in new construction methods and technologies to reach a new generation of building materials and methods that are qualitatively sustainable, ecologically harmless, technically pure, economically attractive and endlessly recyclable.

The Mehr.WERT.Pavillon serves as a clear example for this. All materials used in the project have already gone through at least one life cycle, in the same or modified form. The Mehr.WERT.Pavillon proves overall the applicability of the raw material warehouse – also in structural applications – and shows the beauty inherent in the respective materials.

Hebel, Dirk E. (2020). Ungeheure Möglichkeiten, in: der architekt. material der stadt. 4/2020 (Bund Deutscher Architekten BDA), Berlin, Germany

Marie-Dominique Wetzel, cultural correspondent from SWR2, talks with KIT professor Dirk E. Hebel about his vision of sustainable architecture as a part of the movement against climate change and the destruction of the environment. He emphasizes the importance of research on new building technologies in consideration of the fact that the earth’s resources are more and more declining. Therefore a change in awareness to the cycle-oriented and gradual use of building materials is inevitable for present and future architects.

Video on: https://www.swr.de/swr2

The winners of the third Urban Mining Student Award have been announced: From the total of 20 submitted design proposals, the jury awarded two first prizes and five recognitions. One of the two first prizes went to Jan Matthies & Andrea Santos Rodríguez from the KIT Faculty of Architecture. Hannah Hopp, Viola Winterstein, Laura Ganz and Pia Thisssen were delighted to receive recognitions. The design of Jan Matthies and Andrea Santos Rodríguez convinced the jury mostly by their consequent use of existing building elements coming from the urban mine and their ability to create unique and high quality spatial arrangements adequate for young children.

This year the planning task of the German-wide, open student competition was to plan a travelling school project for Cologne in order to cope with the immense investment backlog regarding reorganization measures in German schools. In order to ensure the continuation of the school operations during these construction measures, the City of Cologne needs an alternative that provides temporary, flexibly relocatable and pedagogically valuable alternative rooms. For KIT, the competition was accompanied by the Professorship of Sustainable Construction, Dirk E. Hebel, Katharina Blümke and Felix Heisel.

The furniture series Prei is made up of used paper and includes a variety of
stools, a bench, trash bins and a shelf. The project was already born several years ago out of the wish to create hand-crafted products from recyclable materials. Used paper is a ressource that constantly surrounds us. The addition of natural additives creates a stable material. Vegetable dies give the objects their final charakter and offer a color variety.

Video on: www.ardmediathek.de

More information on: www.sandraboehm.de

The quantities are gigantic: mankind currently consumes 40 to 50 billion tons of sand per year. This is the result of a study carried out by the UN Environmental Programme UNEP in 2019, making sand one of the most important trading raw materials of all and the second largest traded and mined resource of our time after water.

Prof. Dirk E. Hebel in: Sakowitz, Sven (2020). Uns geht der Sand aus, HÖRZU Wissen.

Ulrich Coenen, BNN: Interview with Prof. Dirk E. Hebel (2020)

The two-part-interview is about Sustainable Thinking, Acting and Building, technical and biological circulations, unmixed and pure construction methods and the application and practice of urban mining. Furthermore they discuss practices of energetic redevelopment of existing buildings and the establishment of new building materials and future energy efficient technologies.

in: Badische Neueste Nachrichten, 11th & 18th February 2020: no. 34 & 40

Urban Mining and Recycling (UMAR)

The Urban Mining and Recycling (UMAR) housing and research unit in NEST, the modular Research and Innovation Building of Empa and Eawag in Dübendorf (Switzerland), is demonstrating what a paradigm shift in the construction industry reacting to the limitation of the world’s natural resources might look like. Turning away from linear material-consumption and towards an economy of material recycling, multiple use, alternative construction methods and the use of entirely separable materials – UMAR works as a material laboratory but also as a material depot. It is a proof that the responsible use of natural resources, the recycling of materials and modern architecture can go hand in hand. Design Team: Werner Sobek with Dirk E. Hebel and Felix Heisel, Bernd Köhler, Frank Heinlein

Bau auf! Kreislaufgerechte Architektur in der Lehre

Traditional materials combined with new technologies: the building material ceramic is undergoing a revival in the research seminar „Bau auf! Kreislaufgerechte Architektur in der Lehre“, offered by the Majolika Karlsruhe and the Department of Sustainable Construction at Karlsruhe’s KIT. The creation of awareness that traditional materials and old material knowledge combined with digital planning methods can lead to innovative solutions was one of the main objectives of the seminar. In the end, innovative facade systems, shading elements and plantable spatial structures were created. Seminar leadership: Sandra Böhm, Dirk E. Hebel

in: BAUART – Architektur und Kultur, inspiriert durch Heimat, Ausgabe 03/2020

Michael Hosch received this honorable mention award with his semester project “MICMAC – MICRO UNITS – MACRO BENEFITS”, conceived in the 5th semester of bachelor studies at KIT under the guidance of the Professorships Sustainable Construction (Hebel, Lenz, Rausch), Building Physics (A. Wagner) , Structural Design (M. Pfeifer) and Building Economy (K. Fischer). The university initiative “Modern Expansion and Lightweight Construction” has set itself the task of working together with universities to advance teaching in this field by organizing – among other activities – this university competition.

Image © copyright by Thomas Müller

Lukas Gerling wins with his Master-Thesis “Future Fessenheim” developed under the guidance of the Professorships of Sustainable Construction Dirk E. Hebel and Landscape Design Prof. Henri Bava the KIT-Sparkassen Environmental Award 2019. His work on the future of the nuclear power plant in Fessenheim was seen by the jury as an highly impotant and socially relevant theme within the international border area of France and Germany. With extraordinary precision derived from his critical-theoretical approach, he developed a design that combines different interpretations, states of memory and fear, architectural elements from present and past, international actors and new local actions. The actual nuclear power plant transformed Lukas Gerling into an expressive “pioneer building” as a public space with offers for cultural exchange, cultural creation and meeting places. By transforming the former reactor building into a space of silence and introversion, Lukas Gerling proves his sensitivity to space and architecture in exchange with psychology and social responsibility. His work was carried out under the Dual Masters Program between the ENSAS Strasbourg and the KIT Faculty of Architecture in Kalsruhe.

Image © copyright by Karlsruher Institut für Technologie Allgemeine Services

The Swiss Platform Circular Hub just published a report on the Journal of Cleaner Production paper «Calculation and evaluation of circularity indicators for the built environment using the case studies of UMAR and Madaster» by Felix Heisel and Sabine Rau-Oberhuber. Read the German summary here.