Fast and sustainable construction, extension and renovation with wood
As part of Expo Real 2019, experts from the timber construction industry came together for the kick-off event of the Holzbau München network. Organiser Andreas Lerge, Managing Director of Wood Real Estate, opened the evening and welcomed his guests with the topics of digitalisation and professionalisation in timber construction. Larger timber construction projects are currently still underrepresented in German cities, but the general demand for living space in Munich will increase by around 250,000 flats by 2025. Reason enough to make urban timber construction the standard through serial construction and industrial prefabrication. The advantages are obvious: systemised construction reduces construction costs, only a few skilled workers are needed on site to assemble prefabricated modules, construction time and noise and traffic pollution are reduced.
Wood is so stable that it can be used to build high-rise buildings and at the same time unrivalled in its lightness that it can be used to add storeys to existing buildings. Another contribution to active climate protection is refurbishment and modernisation with wood, a renewable resource that is more than sufficient. In total, 18 million tonnes of CO2 can be bound in Bavaria alone. Alexander Gumpp, Chairman of the Board of Trustees of proHolz Bayern, believes it is imperative that a life cycle assessment and compliance with emissions limits are a mandatory component of construction projects. An ecological model housing estate is currently being built in Munich: the Prince Eugene Park. An exemplary urban timber construction that creates plenty of living space for many generations. We are committed to a sustainable forestry and timber industry in Bavaria in order to realise more timber construction projects so that we can call Munich a "timber construction city" by 2030.
Housing to be created through more effective development of building sites
The City of Cologne has revoked its waiver of the exercise of the municipal right of first refusal with effect from 1 February 2018 and announced it in the Official Gazette of the City of Cologne. At the same time, the City of Cologne informed the Cologne Land Registry, the Cologne Chamber of Notaries and the Federal Chamber of Notaries of the revocation of its general waiver. The City of Cologne has thus cleared the way for an important legal instrument to secure its urban planning. The aim of the municipal right of first refusal is the more effective development of building areas, which in particular serves the creation of affordable housing in the still tight housing market in Cologne.
The right of first refusal is available to the city according to the legal requirements, for example, for the purchase of land
in the area of application of a development plan, insofar as it concerns areas for which a use for public purposes has been determined in accordance with the development plan,
in a reallocation area,
in a formally designated redevelopment area,
in the area of application of a land use plan, insofar as it concerns undeveloped areas in the outer area, for which a use as residential building land or residential area is shown according to the land use plan, or
in planned or unplanned areas that can be built on primarily with residential buildings, insofar as the properties are undeveloped.
The City of Cologne can thus designate by statute areas in which it has a right of first refusal in areas where it is considering urban development measures in order to ensure orderly urban development.
Insofar as the legal requirements for exercising the municipal right of first refusal are not met or the city does not intend to exercise its right of first refusal, it will issue corresponding certificates to the parties involved. Fees ranging from 61.69 euros to 89.11 euros will be charged for this. The contracting parties or notaries are now required to submit purchase agreements on real estate transactions in the Cologne city area to the responsible Office for Real Estate, Cadastre and Surveying for examination of the right of first refusal. The City of Cologne has a period of two months from the submission of complete documents in which to check the existence of the pre-emptive right and to execute its possible exercise.
On 18 May 2017, the Council of the City of Cologne decided by a majority to reintroduce the right of first refusal after the city had waived it since 1995.
The new film by FechnerMedia shows solutions for a democratic, sustainable and affordable energy supply from 100 % renewable energies. It takes viewers on a journey through a country where hundreds of thousands are fighting for the energy revolution - full of passion and hope, facing setbacks and celebrating successes.
Berlin, 9 January 2020 - One of the Herculean tasks in achieving the climate targets is to radically reduce CO2 emissions from the heating supply. A research group led by the Institute for Ecological Economy Research (IÖW) is showing how cities can move away from coal, oil and gas in a socially responsible way. The "Urban Heat Transition" project analysed possible contributions from renewable energies and local heat sources in Berlin's urban districts. "Waste heat from businesses, heat from waste water or geothermal energy have hardly been utilised to date. The key to such environmentally friendly heat are neighbourhood concepts and heating networks," says project manager Bernd Hirschl from the IÖW. "An important prerequisite is a more efficient building stock. Only if the heat demand is significantly reduced can environmentally friendly heat sources be utilised efficiently."
In the three-year project, the project team from the IÖW, the University of Bremen and the Technical University of Berlin worked together with the Berlin Senate Department for the Environment, Transport and Climate Protection with funding from the Federal Ministry of Education and Research to develop local heating concepts for three Berlin neighbourhoods. At the end of 2019, they discussed their results with the heating industry in Berlin, and the documentation of the conference is now available online at www.urbane-waermewende.de.
Developing nuclei for the heat transition
"Previous neighbourhood concepts were often too complex, had too many different stakeholders and often ended up in a drawer. That's why we recommend a nucleus approach," says Elisa Dunkelberg from the IÖW. These could be public buildings, new construction projects, commercial buildings or housing associations and co-operatives.
The researchers show what a neighbourhood concept can look like for an old building district in Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf: Firstly, the heat demand must be reduced through energy-efficient refurbishment. The heat can be generated using a wastewater heat pump, which is partly powered by solar electricity generated on site, in combination with combined heat and power generation. "Particularly in the case of public buildings, which have a pioneering role - enshrined in law in Berlin - it should always be checked in the case of refurbishment and new buildings whether they are suitable as a nucleus for a neighbourhood concept and the co-supply of surrounding buildings," emphasises Dunkelberg.
Climate-neutral district heating: utilising waste heat and renewables
District heating plays a major role in urban areas. "To become climate-neutral, it is important to integrate more local heat sources from wastewater, river water and geothermal energy as well as waste heat into district heating," says Hirschl, adding that attention must also be paid to the resilience of the heat generation system. A joint case study with the Neukölln district heating plant shows that it is possible to utilise local heat sources. But it needs to be tested technically and requires supporting financial measures. The next steps should now be test drilling for deep geothermal energy, for example, as well as pilot plants that use large heat pumps to provide wastewater or river water heat for district heating. Strategies for funding and risk protection are needed for investment in these technologies, some of which are untested and highly expensive.
Heat transition requires municipal strategic heat planning - and social compatibility
"Municipal heat planning, which has long been standard practice in pioneering countries such as Denmark and in other federal states and municipalities for some time, helps to tap into the identified potential," emphasises Hirschl. The basis for this is a heat register that visualises heat sources such as waste water and commercial waste heat. This can also be used to identify neighbourhoods for cross-building concepts. With sector coupling, it is also important that local authorities and cities plan across infrastructures. Instruments such as urban land-use planning and urban development contracts must be geared towards climate neutrality.
Low refurbishment rates in recent years show that purely incentive-based measures are not enough to ensure energy modernisation. The researchers therefore recommend implementing the regulations more strongly and developing a step-by-step plan to guide the building stock towards climate neutrality. At the same time, subsidies must be increased and conditions for passing on rent must be made more socially acceptable. A step-by-step plan under the conditions of a rent cap must be designed in such a way that energy modernisation is economically reasonable for both landlords and tenants.
Federal Ministry of Education and Research funds "Urban Heat Transition" project for another two years
The Federal Ministry of Education and Research is funding the project in a new partner constellation for a further two years in order to test solution strategies for the central obstacles to implementation and to anchor the research results in municipal heat planning. In addition to the IÖW, the partners are Berliner Wasserbetriebe and the law firm Becker Büttner Held.
In the Federal Republic of Germany, more than 720 million square metres of building surface have been covered with polystyrene since the Second World War.
Now, according to manager magazins, a series of major fires in industry has startled the insurance industry. Accordingly, the insurance industry now openly advises against not only Styrofoam as an insulating material for commercial enterprises, but also against the raw material polystyrene and the related EPS rigid foam.
"The critical fire behaviour of EPS rigid foam is well known," a spokeswoman for the insurance association GDV told manager-magazin.de.
You can find the whole article from 3.1.2017 in the manager magazin
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As part of Expo Real 2019, experts from the timber construction industry came together for the kick-off event of the Holzbau München network. Organiser Andreas Lerge, Managing Director of Wood Real Estate, opened the evening and welcomed his guests with the topics of digitalisation and professionalisation in timber construction. Larger timber construction projects are currently still underrepresented in German cities, but the general demand for living space in Munich will increase by around 250,000 flats by 2025. Reason enough to make urban timber construction the standard through serial construction and industrial prefabrication. The advantages are obvious: systemised construction reduces construction costs, only a few skilled workers are needed on site to assemble prefabricated modules, construction time and noise and traffic pollution are reduced.
