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The book “Urban Mining and Circular Construction. The city as raw materials warehouse”, published in May 2021, edited by Dirk E. Hebel and Felix Heisel, questions the throwaway mentality currently practiced in the construction industry: raw materials are taken from established natural cycles, used and then disposed of without using or even recognizing their potential for continuous value creation.
Materials are consumed and used instead of being borrowed from biological or technical cycles and then returned there. This linear approach has profound consequences for our planet. We are fundamentally changing existing ecosystems.
International experts examine from very different perspectives, and on the basis of future-oriented project examples, how this paradigm shift can succeed and how the technical, logistical and organizational challenges of a circular economy can be met with completely new methodological approaches. A collection of selected material examples shows the special aesthetics and value of reused and recycled building materials and components.
Through positive incentives and impulses, the book shows possible ways to a circular construction industry – because a complete circular economy must become the central and common goal of our society in order to conserve our natural resources.
The DAZ in Berlin hosts an exhibition by the BDA as a plea for the preservation of the existing. In the exhibition, named after the publication “Sorge um den Bestand. Zehn Strategien für die Architektur” published in November 2020, architects and urbanists present their concern for the existing building stock, for grown social structures and for the continuation of the earth.
In addition to Dirk E. Hebel from the Professorship of Sustainable Building at KIT, Katja Fischer, Roland Gruber, Jörg Heiler, Ayşin İpekçi, Maria Isabettini, Simon Jüttner, Jan Kampshoff, Kamiel Klaasse, Andreas Krauth, Urs Kumberger, Tabea Michaelis, Peter Nageler, Michael Obrist, Ben Pohl, Eike Roswag-Klinge and Verena Schmidt are among the participating architects and urban planners.
The exhibition of the Bund Deutscher Architektinnen und Architekten BDA was curated by Olaf Bahner, Matthias Böttger and Laura Holzberg. 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, the buildings erected today, strategies for the circular use of materials and an openness to future requirements are being developed.
The exhibition takes places in the DAZ in Berlin from 03 December 2020 until 27 June 2021. Visiting the exhibition is possible again since 21 May 2021.
More information about the exhibition on www.bda-bund.de or on www.daz.de . Take a look at the book publication here .
From 22 May until 21 November 2021 La Biennale will take place in the Arsenale and the Giardini in Venice. The curator Hashim Sarkis calls on architects to imagine spaces in which we can generously live together in different ways, in the context of widening political divides and growing economic inequalities.
Last year, the team ‘ETH Zurich | KIT Karlsruhe | EiABC Addis Ababa’, led by Marc Angélil and Dirk E. Hebel, developed a contribution entitled “Quo Addis? Conflicts of Coexistence” to the major architecture exhibition. In an urban model of Addis Ababa, the historical and architectural development of the Ethiopian capital from the age of Menelik’s empire in the 19th century until today is depicted in an abstract and at the same time precise and clear way. A film produced by Jenny Rodenhouse completes the exhibition contribution and brings the visitor closer to life and coexistence in the different quarters of the city.
The entire installation was brought to Venice at the end of April by a team of six around Dirk E. Hebel and Katharina Blümke and was set up in the Arsenale. The construction of the model was documented by the team in a short film:
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?
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.
The Norman Foster Foundation (NFF) presents the ‘On Cities’ Masterclass Series, a series of thirty-minute-long masterclasses which explores the most pressing and compelling topics related to contemporary cities. Given by twenty leading experts in the fields of architecture, urbanism, economics and mobility, this video series supports the NFF’s extensive educational programme by promoting an exchange of knowledge across a range of geographic and disciplinary perspectives.
Although cities may offer significant advantages for inhabitants, urbanisation is widely regarded as one of the fundamental challenges for public health, social equity and sustainability. To meet these challenges, speakers touch themes such as urban leadership, equity, urban informality, urban food systems, urban sustainability, urban materiality, urban mobility, and urban economics, among other key topics.
In his introductory masterclass to the series, Norman Foster (President, Norman Foster Foundation) considers the future of cities and the crises that cities have overcome throughout their history, arguing that the current pandemic has accelerated important trends already in motion, such as a return to green and open public space and compact urban areas that provide inhabitants with services and leisure within a walking distance:
In light of the finite nature of the world’s resources, Prof. Dirk E. Hebel (Professorship of Sustainable Construction, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology) explores the ways in which materials can be reused through ‘urban mining’, referencing the research of new recycled and organic materials in his masterclass, titled ‘Sustainable Materials’:
The contributing speakers also include the following experts: Yvonne Aki-Sawyerr (Mayor of Freetown, Sierra Leone) Joseph G Allen (Director of the Healthy Buildings Program T. H. Chan School of Public Health, Harvard University) Deborah Berke (Dean, Yale’s School of Architecture) Luis Bettencourt (Inaugural Director, Mansueto Institute for Urban Innovation, University of Chicago) Richard Burdett (Director, LSE Cities) Vishaan Chakrabarti (William W. Wurster Dean, College of Environmental Design, University of California, Berkeley) Robin Chase (Cofounder, ZipCar) Fonna Forman (Founding Director, Center on Global Justice, University of California, San Diego) Sou Fujimoto (Founder, Sou Fujimoto Architects) Edward Glaeser (Fred and Eleanor Glimp Professor of Economics, Harvard University) Francis Kéré (Founder, Kéré Architecture and Kéré Foundation) Anupama Kundoo (Principal, Anupama Kundoo Architects) Kent Larson (Director, MIT City Science Research Group) Giuseppe Sala (Mayor of Milan, Italy) Carolyn Steel (Director, Kilburn Nightingale Architects) Tim Stonor (Managing Director, Space Syntax) Belinda Tato (Cofounder and Codirector, Ecosistema Urbano) Theresa Williamson (Founder and Director, Catalytic Communities)
Watch the full ‘On Cities’ Masterclass Series on YouTube here.
Urbanisation in Europe reached approximately 75%, and the tendency is growing; thus, European cities face several urgent problems, which should be solved to comply with the EU targets to fight climate change.
To name a few critical problems aligned with the scope of the project:
Available living space is getting rare within the existing boundaries due to the increasing rate of migration from people into cities and the constant growth of the consumption of square meter per person.
Environmental quality in cities is strongly affected by pollution, mainly caused by combustion (traffic, heating), and increasing temperatures as well as heat waves during the summer due to urban heat island effects.
Most buildings of the existing building stock in European cities were built with a low energy efficiency standard which results in high energy consumption (mostly for heating) and related CO2-emissions.
Lastly, the building materials are not only slowly getting scarce and affect the quality of the living spaces, but the building sector is also responsible for a large amount of waste.
To tackle this, Team RoofKIT choses a holistic approach: The extension of buildings with an additional living unit requires combined urban design and architectural strategies, considering the specific requirements of the site but at the same time seeking a more general solution regarding adding living units on cities’ rooftops. RoofKIT‘s goal here is to take up the local potentials of the site and neighbourhood and improve it together with the building design by creating synergies. Together with the outdoor space, the extension will be an exemplary project that will fit into various other contexts in the neighbourhood, the city, and beyond, thanks to ist modularity. It is important that the outdoor space makes no distinction between residents, neighbours or visitors enabling flexibility, multiple uses, capacity, creativity and freedom of use.
Whole Building Design Approach Although topping up allows creating living space with very low impact on neighbours and users of the existing building, RoofKIT decided to enhance the current situation and to upgrade the existing building by economic, social and energetic terms. Therefore, the interior layout is revised according to the needs of the different functions. Based on the analysis of the existing functions of Café Ada, strategies have been developed to strengthen them further: The ball room that attracts tango dancers from all parts of the world as well as theexisting sleeping facilities for them are not appropriate to the situation. For this reason, an ‘urban gap’ is created, which forms a transition between the existing structure and the extension and presents the dance hall to the public. The load bearing structure from the early 20st century will be further used and partly reinforced.
House Demonstration Unit Design Approach In order to transfer the concept from the overall building to the house demonstration unit, RoofKIT has chosen the southwest corner of the building as a cutout. It is perceived as a two-story structure that represents the two main components of our building: The residential units and the urban gap. Just as in the overall design, the HDU is built in modular timber construction and consists of a total of four modules. The module that is placed in front of the others in a transverse direction functions as a terrace and represents the shared spaces of our building design. Inside, the interior design is also characterized by modularity in the form of custom-made furniture, which allows flexibility and is especially space-saving at the same time. Furthermore, the open floor plan allows for high space efficiency since no pure traffic zone exists.
Structural Design The challenge for the RoofKIT design is to base on an already existing building, whose bearing structure has almost reached its load limits. The structural design of the project keeps the established building almost free from additional loads. This works because the thick external brick walls bears the load of the addition. An examination of the walls and foundations will show whether they need to be strengthened. The internal supporting structure has to be reinforced, to bear the increased live loads of the ball room in the urban gap. To keep the additional loads for the top-up to a minimum, a lightweight wooden frame construction was chosen.
Solar System Integration 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. As part of the goal, the sizing of the RoofKIT’s PV and battery system will focus on a high self-coverage of the energy demand as well as on stabilising effects of the grid. In other words, the feed-in of surplus electric energy during solar peaks and heavycharging of grid energy during peak load times will be avoided by a smart building energy management including the building and mobility solutions. A balanced energy threshold over the year (consumption and generation) as a function of available solar radiation, actual energy demand and grid requirements will be achieved by load shifting or any other sort of demand-side management. RoofKIT does not regard the use of solar systems as a mere necessity but as a possibility to design the building on an architectural level.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
In form of a “Stegreif”, the Professorship of Sustainable Construction jointly with the KIT Zukunftscampus, launched a competition for future outdoor learning spaces at KIT campus. A structure was to be designed that would enable learning and working in an outdoor environment. The design was to be independent of a specific location but should be considered as a flexible object for many possible spots and create a recognizable landmark for the KIT community.
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1st prizes: “KONRAD” (D. Faltien), “Lerninsel+” (A. Resch), “Lern doch, wo du willst” (M. Weber) Acknowledgement: “toolKIT” (E. Boerman)
All proposals developed have a high degree of practicality and are basically suitable for implementation. During their judging session, the jury decided in favor of three first prizes and one acknowledgement. The three first prizes were given to the projects of Dominic Faltien, Alexander Resch and Milena Weber, the acknowledgement was given to the work of Elena Boerman. The three first prize projects will be further elaborated in regards to the construction and consequently realization of a prototype.
“The future city makes no distinction between waste and supply.” Joachim Mitchell, New York
How can we create social-economic fair living space without destroying our natural resources? And how can we create ecologically sensitive building structures, acknowledging the finite state of natural material supplies, and avoid any state of “waste”, but understand the existing building stock as an urban material bank for the future? How can we create alternative solar harvesting systems as part of an urban mining ideology and propose paradigm-shifting innovations as first-of-their-kind worldwide? And how can we apply urban mobility systems as an integrative part of the immobile building sector?
The Solar Decathlon Europe 21 (SDE21) is a publicly held competition for sustainable building and urban living, which will take place in 2022 in Wuppertal, Germany, where it will be judged. The motto: „design-build-operate.“ This means that, unlike in other architectural competitions, the participating teams will actually build their designs. The aim of the competition is to find innovative and at the same time tangible solutions to the technical, architectural and social problems we face in our cities.
The first Solar Decathlon was held in 2002 by the Department of Energy of the United States on the National Mall in Washington D.C., followed in 2010 by the first European version in Madrid. With the SDE21 comes the world‘s 21st edition of the competition for the first time to Germany – with a new and urban profile and the question of how we should deal with limited ressource in future constructions and how to apply the necessery and politically demanded concept of a circular economy within the building industry.
18 university teams from 11 countries will construct fully usable demonstration units of approx. 80 sqm each on the Solar Campus in Wuppertal which is locatad on the Utopiastadt site in 2022. The teams will compete with their buildings in 10 different disciplines.
The RoofKIT team of the KIT Faculty of Architecture will address those urgent questions in the competition by exploring a gigantic surface resource within our cities: rooftops. By applying the idea of the circular economy towards the identification of new possible building sites within our cities, and by applying the concept also towards the material as well as the energy question, the project will show that it is possible to integrate the building sector in a functioning sustainable system already today. The city of today will be the resource for the city of tomorrow. It needs a new generation contract for both – the society and young architects, engineers and planners at large.
The impact of such a radical paradigm shift is not debatable. In the light of a world-wide climate crisis, we need to shift our way of how we think, design and construct architecture. RoofKIT will be a demonstrator for a new generation of buildings, that take their responsibility seriously. It will show that social sustainability in form of affordable high quality living space interacting with their neighbourhoods is a question of good and informed design, that solar harvesting will not be an accessory but a mandatory part of any design process and mobility concept and that resources coming from the urban mine and designed as a material bank can and will be interwoven to a synergetic resilient design as they are enabled to move unrestrictedly in a future circular economy.
Work in the materials library is progressing. More and more parts of the old raw building fabric are becoming visible.
The renovation of the premises of the material library began some months ago and a lot has already happened. For example, current new electrical installations are being installed and a new modern lighting design has already been completed and will be implemented soon.
After many areas have been uncovered, a contemporary repair of the ceiling and walls is now taking place as well as the preparations for the new glazing.
The new material library will thus become a spacious, airy room, which will already provide generous views from the outside. We will continue to report on the development status of the new KIT material library here on the ChangeLab platform.
The renovation of the premises is supported by Wacker Chemie AG.
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Images: Bernd Seeland, Faculty of Architecture, KIT Karlsruhe
Das KIT braucht dringend neue Lernräume! Plätze in der Bibliothek sind gemessen an der Studierendenzahl rar und meist schnell ausgebucht. Auch Arbeitsplätze, vor allem Gruppenarbeitsplätze (2-6 Personen), sind Mangelware. Das AKK (Arbeitskreis Kultur und Kommunikation) bietet nur bedingt die Möglichkeit im Sommer draußen zu lernen – es fehlt an einer entsprechenden Infrastruktur wie z.B. Steckdosen, Blend-, und Sonnenschutz und einem Dach bei Regen.
Deswegen soll im Rahmen eines Stegreifs des Fachgebiets Nachhaltiges Bauen gemeinsam mit dem Zukunftscampus KIT ein Prototyp entworfen werden, der Lernen und Arbeiten im Freien ermöglicht. Der Prototyp kann dabei beispielhaft auf einer Freifläche des KIT geplant werden, sollte aber einer möglichen Versetzbarkeit entsprechend mitgedacht werden.Ziel ist es mit Hilfe des „Outdoor Lern- und ArbeitsRAUMS“ gut gestaltete öffentliche und soziale Räume zu schaffen, und durch neue Landmarken eine Sichtbarkeit auf dem Campus zu etablieren.
Der Stegreif ist als Wettbewerb ausgelegt und bietet Möglichkeiten zur Realisation.
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
Yesterday our symposium grow.build.repeat. took place. It was a great day with exciting and high-class lectures and interesting discussions. The Professorship of Sustainable Construction would like to thank all participants!
Many thanks to all viewers for watching, asking questions and for the great feedback.
Many thanks for the Organization: KIT Faculty for Architecture The kind support: Wacker Chemie AG Live Translation: KIT Lecture Translator, Karlsruhe Information Technology Solutions – kites GmbH Social Media Support: Frank Metzger, Denis Elbl
Special thanks to our speakers: Prof. Dr. Hanaa Dahy, Prof. Eike Roswag-Klinge, Andrea Klinge, Dr. Henk Jonkers, Dr. Alireza Javadian, Prof. Dr. Marie-Pierre Laborie, Martin Rauch, Werner Schmidt, Diana Drewes, Dr. Michael Sailer, Mitchell Joachim
Many thanks to our panel discussion partners from Wacker Chemie AG: Peter Summo, Dr. Theo Mayer, Dr. Tobias Halbach, Dr. Peter Jerschow
Thank you for planning, organizing and preparing the event with us: AMP Aurora Motion Pictures, Jessica Decker, Sylvia Aust and Dr. Theo Mayer representing the whole team of Wacker Chemie AG
Construction with fungal roots and storing electricity with wood waste are two innovations that we will (hopefully) hear much more about in the future. At the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) Professor Dirk E. Hebel is conducting research into radically different solutions. He wants to replace conventional building materials like concrete with renewable raw materials.
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
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.
From technique to application: in a joint seminar of the KIT Professorships of Sustainable Construction and Building Technology, a small rammed earth garden house was being built near Freiburg. The seminar consisted of testing the material, building the suitable formwork, bringing the clay in and compacting it by manual work.
In addition the students received the basic and background knowledge in advance and had the possibility to learn about the geological local conditions afterwork on site.
This way they gained practical experience in this construction method under adapted conditions to obtain technical know-how and to experience the possibilities and the materiality of rammed earth on a building site.
Due to the increasing number of infections caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, we have decided to hold the symposium grow.build.repeat. online, which will take place on December 4, 2020.
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.
Ein neues Zuhause für die Affen im Karlsruher Zoo!
The endangered Kattas (lemures) of the Karlsruhe zoo live in a small enclosure in the monkey house at the moment, that no longer corresponds to the recommended guidelines. At the request of the zoo, the Ludwigsee island in the middle of the Stadtgarten is to be developed as a walk-in island and serve as a new home for the lemures. This will give them 20 times more space than is currently available to them. In order to keep this natural habitat as large as possible and not to take away any space on the island, the warm house will be built on the territory of the lake and serve as a refuge for the monkeys in cooler temperatures or bad weather.
The design is designed as an idea competition and offers possibilities for realization. First Meeting: 4.11.2020, 12:00 Excursion to the Zoo: 11.11.2020, 15:00
Jeden Tag wird in Deutschland die Fläche von etwa 100 Fußballfeldern in Bauland umgewandelt und damit versiegelt. Der Sachverständigenrat für Umweltfragen stellte unlängst fest, dass der Wohnungsbau einer der bedeutendsten Treiber dieser Entwicklung ist. Die durchschnittliche Wohnfläche pro Kopf ist auf inzwischen 46,7 m² (Stand 2018) angestiegen. Dazu kommt ein überhitzter Wohnungsmarkt in vielen Teilen des Landes. Insbesondere für junge Familien ist es häufig sehr schwierig stadtnah geeignete und ausreichend große Wohnungen finden. Die bisher oft einzige Antwort darauf, neue Baugebiete auszuweisen, fördert allerdings den weiteren zügellosen Flächenverbrauch in Deutschland. Doch auch innerhalb des Wohnungsbestands gibt es Flächenreserven. Eine besondere Rolle dabei spielen ältere Menschen. Nach Angaben des Bundesamtes für Bauwesen und Raumordnung belegte ein Ein-Personenhaushalt in der Altersgruppe über 75 Jahre im Jahr 1978 noch 55 m² Wohnfläche, im Jahr 2002 waren es bereits 75m², während die sich der durchschnittliche Wohnflächenverbrauch junger Ein-Personenhaushalte im gleichen Zeitraum fast nicht veränderte. Fast die Hälfte der Einpersonenhaushalte in Deutschland werden von älteren Menschen bewohnt, und in einem Viertel aller Privathaushalte lebten 2018 ausschließlich ältere Menschen ab 65 Jahren. Der Wohnflächenverbrauch pro Kopf ist also nicht nur generell hoch, sondern auch sehr ungleich verteilt. Viele ältere Menschen der „Generation Gold“ sind nach dem Abschluss ihres Berufslebens nach wie vor aktiv und fit, aber dennoch oft mit dem Unterhalt ihrer meist zu groß gewordenen Haushalte überfordert. Was, wenn man den Wohnungsmarkt einfach, wie früher eine Festplatte, „defragmentieren“ könnte? Ist es möglich eine Win-Win-Situation für beide Seiten zu entwerfen?
In Kooperation mit der Nestbau AG Tübingen werden wir in Pfrondorf bei Tübingen innovative Wohnkonzepte entwickeln, die es für Personen der „Generation Gold“ attraktiv machen, ihre Wohnung zugunsten junger Familien aufzugeben, ohne auf ein selbstbestimmtes und aktives Leben in der gewohnten Nachbarschaft verzichten zu müssen. Gleichzeitig bietet sich dadurch ein Potential, die Wohnsituation des Einzelnen mit gemeinschaftlichen Räumlichkeiten und Treffpunkten aufzuwerten, die einen sozialen Austausch der Bewohner mit ihrem Umfeld befördern, und dadurch einen Mehrwert für die „Generation Gold“ bedeuten.
Wir werden den Entwurf in enger Zusammenarbeit und mit integrierten Vertiefungen von Tragkonstruktion (Prof. Pfeifer), Bauphysik und technischer Ausbau (Prof. Wagner) und Bauökonomie (Hon. Prof. Kai Fischer) durchführen.
Mittwoch 28.10.2020 10:00-12:00 Vorstellung Studio Ordnung (5. Semester) über Zoom.
Erstes Treffen mit Entwurfsausgabe: Mittwoch 04.11.2020, 13.00 Uhr
In a joint seminar, construction methods are to be investigated and documented that can guarantee the future deconstruction of buildings by type and thus form the basis of cycle-based construction. At the beginning the basics and principles of joining and designing a future recycling economy will be taught. Based on this topic, historical and current construction methods will be examined, which can be deconstructed, reused or recycled after their use in the building.
A demonstrator for sustainable construction in cooperation with Wacker Chemie AG
Demonstrators in the building sector serve to place new vectors into the future and to generate potential fields. It is vital that innovations are encouraged that will help to reduce the environmental impact of building components as well as increase their durability, recyclability and sustainability. In the vision of a future-orientated construction industry we have to find new solutions in developing and applying novel and sustainable construction materials and techniques.
By developing a demonstrator for the future building industry, the students get the chance to develop scenarios for construction applications for a circular construction economy. Scenarios that adapt to new conditions and do not consume raw materials, but only use it and return it to its original state after the life cycle of the construction.
After a research on existing demonstrators the students will collect materials and construction methods which fulfil specific criteria for a sustainable and circular economy. In a further phase of the seminar, the students will design the demonstrator and bring their research into practice.
Wacker Chemie, as the collaborator of this seminar will give the students the opportunity to realize their best design concepts.
In the Winter Semester 2020/21, the KIT Faculty of Architecture will offer a lecture series on Sustainable Construction, organized by the Professorship of Sustainable Construction, Dirk E. Hebel. In total 12 lectures will address the history, state of the art, and alternative futures within the theme. Speakers are: Daniela Schneider, Prof. Daniel Fuhrhop, Prof. Andreas Wagner, Prof. Matthias Pfeifer, Prof. Markus Neppl, and Prof. Dirk E. Hebel. Please refer to the poster for actual dates. The lecture is held every Wednesday, 10:00 am online.
In the Winter Semester 2020/21, the KIT Faculty of Architecture will offer a lecture series on Materials, organized by the chair of Sustainable Construction, Dirk E. Hebel. In total 11 lectures will address conventional and alternative building materials and their use in construction. Speakers are: Andrea Klinge, Nazanin Saeidi, Peter Schöffel, Geoffrey Leitner, Alireza Javadian and Sandra Böhm. Please refer to the poster for actual dates. The lecture is held every Friday, 2 pm at the Forum at KIT Campus South.
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.
The symposium grow.build.repeat. at the KIT Faculty of Architecture deals with one of the most urgent questions of our time: how can we drive forward a radical change of the existing construction industry while increasingly considering the breeding, cultivation, seeding, and harvesting of biological building materials and their system cycles? The symposium is the second in a series on the topic of sustainable construction. The first event (take.build.repeat. in autumn 2018) dealt mainly with mineral and metallic material cycles in the field of urban mining and its potential for sustainable construction. The second symposium, grow.build.repeat, now addresses the biological material cycle and presents future-oriented examples from construction practice and research. Representatives from science and industry, research, practitioners, decision-makers within our democratic society, as well as teachers and students will come together to discuss the future of construction in lectures and discussions and subsequently to actively participate in shaping it.
The event is organized by the Professorship of Sustainable Construction (Faculty of Architecture, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology KIT) and is kindly supported by Wacker Chemie AG.
Against the backdrop of the climate crisis, the exhibition Critical Zones at ZKM questions the way we deal with our living space on earth. The exhibition explores new and possible forms of coexistence between all forms of life and shows ways of dealing with the current critical situation.
With the presentation of the MycoTree, the Chair of Sustainable Construction of the KIT Faculty of Architecture wants to contribute to this important discourse.
After all, future economic and ecological development worldwide is strongly linked to the question where our resources for future prosperity will come from. As our mines dry up and CO2 levels reach alarming levels, we have to radically rethink in all economic sectors. Until now, the earth’s natural resources have been extracted and disposed of in a linear process. This approach has profound consequences for our planet, which will become even worse unless a circular process is installed. Fungal research aims to establish new biological cycles in the construction industry.
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HFG_BIO-DESIGN-LAB_2
HFG_BIO-DESIGN-LAB_1
Images: Arno Kohlem and the Bio Design Lab HfG Karlsruhe
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.
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.
Loam is produced by the natural weathering of rocks. It can be found almost everywhere and is considered a local building material – even on the Upper Rhine. It consists of different rock or particle sizes, from sand to silt to clay. If dried loam is combined with sufficient water, it becomes plastic again and can be brought into a new form.
In a joint seminar of the KIT Professorships of Sustainable Construction and Building Technology, a small rammed earth garden house is currently being built near Freiburg. After the material has been tested and suitable formwork has been built, the clay is currently being brought in and compacted.
The students received the basic and background knowledge in advance and currently have the opportunity to gain practical experience in this construction method under adapted conditions, to obtain technical know-how and to experience the materiality of rammed earth live.
Images: Katharina Blümke, Faculty of Architecture, KIT Karlsruhe
After the demolition work has been completed, the material library shines as a light-flooded room. The next steps of the renovation are already in progress and will be shown here soon.
The renovation of the premises is supported by Wacker Chemie AG.
Images: Bernd Seeland, Faculty of Architecture, KIT Karlsruhe
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.
Hebel, Dirk E. Interview: “Vom linearen zum zirkulären Kreislaufsystem.” Interview by Sandra Hofmeister, DETAIL 11.2024, Nov. 2024.
Building with renewable materials – Nature as a resource depot
October 29, 2024
Hebel, Dirk E., Sandra Böhm, Elena Boerman, Hrsg. Vom Bauen mit erneuerbaren Materialien – Die Natur als Rohstofflager. Stuttgart: Fraunhofer IRB Verlag, 2024.
Guest contribution: ‘Thinking, designing and operating in circular ways.’
June 27, 2024
Hebel, Dirk E. “In Kreisläufen denken, entwerfen und wirtschaften.”MÄG – Mein Häfele Magazin, 2024.
Interview: ‘Mycelium power for the construction industry’
June 10, 2024
Rubel, Maike, and Patricia Leuchtenberger. Interview: “Pilzpower für die Bauindustrie.” competitionline, 7 June 2024, https://www.competitionline.com/de/news/schwerpunkt/pilzpower-fuer-die-bauindustrie-7283.html.
‘Future building materials: mushroom, hemp and algae’ in neubau kompass
May 27, 2024
Müller, Janek. “Baumaterialien der Zukunft: Pilze, Hanf und Algen.”neubau kompass – Neubauprojekte in Deutschland, May 3, 2024. https://www.neubaukompass.de/premium-magazin/.
Interview: ‘We have disposed of valuable materials’
May 7, 2024
Sören, S. Sgries. “Interview: ‘Wir haben wertvolle Materialien weggeworfen.’”Rhein-Neckar-Zeitung, April 27, 2024, SÜDWEST I 28 edition, sec. Sinsheimer Nachrichten.
Built on mushroom
April 24, 2024
Schweikle, Johannes. “Auf Pilz gebaut.”Stuttgarter Zeitung, April 23, 2024, sec. Die Reportage.
Organic Architecture – Fungus mycelium and flax as materials for the ecological building transition
February 13, 2024
Klaaßen, Lars. “Organische Architektur – Pilzmyzel und Flachs als Materialien für die ökologische Bauwende.” In Deutsches Architektur Jahrbuch 2024, edited by Peter Cachola Schmal, Yorck Förster, and Christina Gräwe, 198–209. Berlin, Germany: DOM publishers, 2024.
Circular construction – Circulation instead of demolition in “BUND-Jahrbuch 2024”
Redesigned Material Library at KIT in ‘Mitteilungsblatt des VDB-Regionalverbands Südwest’
January 8, 2024
Mönnich, Michael, and Sandra Böhm. “Neu gestaltete Materialbibliothek am KIT.”Südwest-Info: Mitteilungsblatt des VDB-Regionalverbands Südwest Nr. 36 (2023), 2023.
RoofKIT Wuppertal, Germany; Interview with Prof. Dirk Hebel
November 20, 2023
Hebel, Dirk E. “RoofKIT Wuppertal, Germany; Interview with Prof. Dirk Hebel: The aim is clear, we must forge the path ourselves.” In Sustainable Architecture & Design 2023/ 2024, edited by Andrea Herold, Tina Kammerer, and InteriorPark., 46–55. Stuttgart, Germany: av edition GmbH, 2023.
The existing building stock is the future resource
November 16, 2023
Hebel, Dirk E. “Der Bestand ist die künftige Ressource – Den linearen Umgang mit Baumaterialien schnellstmöglich stoppen.”Planerin – Mitgliederfachzeitschrift für Stadt-, Regional- und Landesplanung, Oktober 2023.
Article: Investigation of mechanical, physical and thermoacoustic properties of a novel light-weight dense wall panels made of bamboo Phyllostachys Bambusides
October 30, 2023
Gholizadeh, Parham, Hamid Zarea Hosseinabadi, Dirk E. Hebel, and Alireza Javadian. “Investigation of Mechanical, Physical and Thermoacoustic Properties of a Novel Light-Weight Dense Wall Panels Made of Bamboo Phyllostachys Bambusides.”Nature Sientific Reports 13 (October 26, 2023). https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-023-45515-3
Building Better – Less – Different: Clean Energy Transition and Digital Transformation
October 16, 2023
Hebel, Dirk E., Felix Heisel, Andreas Wagner, und Moritz Dörstelmann, Hrsg. Besser Weniger Anders Bauen – Energiewende und digitale Transformation. Besser Weniger Anders Bauen 2. Basel: Birkhäuser Verlag GmbH, 2023.
From hunting, breeding and harvesting future building materials
September 27, 2023
Hebel, Dirk E. “Vom Jagen, Züchten Und Ernten Zukünftiger Baumaterialien.”Baukultur Nordrhein Westfalen, September 2023.
Building Circular
September 21, 2023
Hebel, Dirk E., Ludwig Wappner, Katharina Blümke, Valerio Calavetta, Steffen Bytomski, Lisa Häberle, Peter Hoffmann, Paula Holtmann, Hanna Hoss, Daniel Lenz and Falk Schneemann, eds. Sortenrein Bauen – Methode Material Konstruktion.Edition DETAIL. München: DETAIL Business Information GmbH, 2023.
Fungi
September 18, 2023
Schweikle, Johannes. “Fungi.” In Earthlike, 1:70–75, 2023.
Recent Contributions in “wohnen”
September 18, 2023
Hebel, Dirk E. “Die Stadt als Rohstofflager.”wohnen – Zeitschrift der Wohnungswirtschaft Bayern, August 2023.
Hebel, Dirk E. “Das RoofKIT-Gebäude der KIT Fakultät für Architektur – Gewinner des Solar Decathlon 2021/22 in Wuppertal.”wohnen – Zeitschrift der Wohnungswirtschaft Bayern, August 2023.
The City as Materials Storage
July 14, 2023
Hebel, Dirk E. “Die Stadt Als Rohstofflager.” Aktuell – Das Magazin Der Wohnung- Und Immobilienwirtschaft in Baden-Württemberg, 2023.
Building-Circle instead of One-Way-Economy
June 30, 2023
Ellinghaus, Tanja. “Bau-Kreislauf Statt Einweg-Wirtschaft.”Transition – Das Energiewendemagazin Der Dena, 2023.
Pure construction methods – circularity-based self-conception in architecture
June 14, 2023
Hebel, Dirk E. “Sortenreines Konstruieren – Kreislaufbasiertes Selbstverständnis in der Architektur.”Baumit, 2023. https://www.calameo.com/read/0011023184a57c4715124.
Building as a Project of Circularity
June 14, 2023
Reddy, Anita. “Bauen Als Kreislaufprojekt.” Engagement Global GGmbH, October 20, 2020. https://www.faz.net/aktuell/rhein-main/frankfurt/frankfurt-setzt-auf-recycling-nach-abriss-stadt-wird-baustofflager-18707619.html.
Vivid Cycles: Reopening of RoofKIT on the KIT Campus
Wagner, Prof. Andreas, Nicolás Carbonare, Regina Gebauer, Prof. Dirk E. Hebel, Katharina Knoop, and Michelle Montnacher, eds. “RoofKIT.” In Solares und kreislaufgerechtes Bauen, 186–213. Wuppertal: PinguinDruck, 2023.
The built environment as a Resource
April 5, 2023
Blümke, Katharina, Elena Boerman, Daniel Lenz, and Riklef Rambow. “Die gebaute Umwelt als Ressource – Mit RoofKIT vom linearen zum zirkulären Verständnis des Bauens.”ASF Journal, March 28, 2023.
Solar Decathlon Europe 21/22
March 29, 2023
Voss, Karsten, and Katharina Simon, editors. Solar Decathlon Europe 21/22: Competition Source Book. 2023.
Mushrooms as a promising building material of the future
February 1, 2023
Wenk, Holger. “Pilze Als Vielversprechender Baustoff Der Zukunft.”BG Bau Aktuell – Arbeitsschutz Für Unternehmen, vol. 04/22, no. Rohbau, Sept. 2022, pp. 12–13.
Go into the mushrooms
December 20, 2022
Jeroch, Theresa. “In Die Pilze Gehen.”Die Architekt, November 2022.
How we build in the future
December 15, 2022
Niederstadt, Jenny. “Wie Wir in Zukunft Bauen.” Helmholtz-Gemeinschaft, December 12, 2022. https://www.helmholtz.de/newsroom/artikel/wie-wir-in-zukunft-bauen/.
The RoofKIT project as a demonstrator of solutions for today and tomorrow
December 15, 2022
RoofKIT, Karlsruhe. “Le Projet RoofKIT Comme Démonstrateur de Solutions Pour Aujourd’hui et Demain.” Translated by Régis Bigot. NEOMAG, December 2022.
