Multiple commissioning decided for Freiburg's "Metzgergrün" quarter
Published
In a team with the architects Dietrich|Untertrifaller, the office Ramboll Studio Dreiseitl won the multiple commission from Freiburger Stadtbau GmbH for the Metzgergrün quarter. The estate is to change significantly over the next ten years and develop into a contemporary quarter with around 500 apartments, without losing its original character. The jury praised the design as follows: "This urban composition of residential courtyards, socio-spatial centre, high-quality and differentiated usable open spaces, new interconnections and correct pathways has the potential to create a model and future-oriented quarter."
Important impetus for electric mobility in Germany
Bonn/Cologne, 14 June 2017
The new vehicle type is based on a Ford Transit chassis, which is equipped with a battery-electric drivetrain and a body structure in accordance with Post and DHL Paket specifications. Image: Deutsche Post DHL Group
StreetScooter GmbH, a subsidiary of Deutsche Post, and Ford-Werke GmbH are entering into a partnership to build battery-powered delivery vehicles. After Deutsche Post has already made its mark on the market for smaller vans with the emission-free StreetScooter, which it developed and built itself, the partnership is now moving on to a larger vehicle type: the basis is a Ford Transit chassis, which is equipped with a battery-electric drivetrain and a bodywork according to the specifications of Deutsche Post and DHL Paket.
Production will start in July 2017 and at least 2,500 units will be deployed in Deutsche Post DHL Group's inner-city delivery operations by the end of 2018. This volume will make the joint project the largest producer of battery-electric medium-duty delivery vehicles in Europe.
Both companies, Deutsche Post DHL Group and Ford, share the same goal of helping to shape the mobility of the future by reducing emissions and developing new transport solutions. This partnership is a concrete and important step towards achieving these goals.
"I see this partnership as another important boost for electromobility in Germany," says Jürgen Gerdes, Member of the Board of Management of Deutsche Post AG. "This step underlines Deutsche Post's innovation leadership, will relieve the burden on city centres and improve people's quality of life. We are continuing to work on a completely CO2-neutral Logistics!“
"Electromobility and innovative transport solutions for urban areas are at the centre of our efforts to align our business with the requirements of the future," says Steven Armstrong, Group Vice President and President Europe, Middle East and Africa, Ford Motor Company. "For us as the market leader in the commercial vehicle segment in Europe, this partnership is the perfect complement to our plans. With StreetScooter and the Deutsche Post DHL Group, we have a partner with enormous expertise and a global network."
In addition to the new production line, production of the existing StreetScooter models will be significantly expanded, as already announced: StreetScooter GmbH plans to produce up to 20,000 units of its successful smaller e-delivery vehicle in different variants each year in Aachen and at a future additional production site in North Rhine-Westphalia. More than 2,500 StreetScooters are already in use throughout Germany for Deutsche Post. In addition, more and more external interested parties are registering demand or have already taken delivery of StreetScooters to convert their vehicle fleets to emission-free operation.
Source: Deutsche Post DHL Group press release dated 14 June 2017
Dr. Kirsten David, a researcher at HafenCity University (HCU) Hamburg, has developed an innovative method for determining rent increases after energy efficiency measures: By means of functional cost splitting, rent increases become appropriate and comprehensible. The planning of the energetic measures is also ecologically optimized. For her dissertation entitled "Functional Cost Splitting for the Determination of Rent Increases after Energy Efficiency Measures", the scientist today receives the "BUND Research Award 2020". With the research award, the Bund für Umwelt- und Naturschutz (BUND) honors scientific work on sustainable development.
Rent increases due to energy-efficient building modernisation are legally permissible and politically desired as an investment incentive. After all, according to the German Energy Agency (dena), around 35% of Germany's total energy consumption is attributable to the building sector. An increase in the renovation rate is therefore necessary from a climate policy perspective.
However, while the legislators assume that such measures can be implemented economically and without affecting the rent, the experience of many tenants is different: Often the rent increases exceed the saved heating and energy costs many times over. In extreme cases, tenants can no longer afford their apartments. "To this day, energy-efficient building refurbishment has a reputation as a gentrification tool," says David. With the method she developed to determine appropriate rent increases, the 45-year-old scientist also wants to contribute to an increased social acceptance of corresponding measures.
"The basis of the politically expected increase amounts is the so-called coupling principle," explains the architect. "Like the Energy Saving Ordinance, it assumes that energy efficiency measures will always be implemented when a comprehensive refurbishment is due anyway. The sticking point: only the modernization costs entitle landlords* to rent increases, but not the costs for the renovation. The latter must be deducted from the total investment sum as "anyway costs". Eight percent of the remaining costs can be passed on to the tenants as a modernisation charge.
"The current regulation is insufficient. In practice, there are manifold demarcation problems between modernisation costs relevant to rent increases and maintenance costs not relevant to rent increases," says David. The method she developed, on the other hand, focuses on the climate-relevant improvement of each individual building component compared to its condition before the construction measure. "Functional cost splitting thus corresponds to the actual basic idea of the legislators, is practicable and enables an appropriate and comprehensible allocation to modernisation or refurbishment costs," says David.
According to the scientist, her approach leads to the omission of measures that are nonsensical from a structural engineering point of view and do not bring about any climate-relevant improvement of the building components: "With my method, such measures are not relevant for rent increases and are therefore uneconomical for landlords. In addition, your calculation method ensures that the modernization levy actually approaches the level of the ancillary cost savings as a rule. The award winner is therefore particularly pleased that the sustainability aspect of her work has been recognised with the BUND Research Award: "Rental housing stock can only be developed sustainably if ecological, economic and social aspects are given equal consideration. Functional cost splitting makes a significant contribution to this."
This year, the BUND Research Award will be presented at a virtual conference. Among other things, keynote speaker and environmental scientist Ernst Ulrich von Weizsäcker will discuss with the three award winners how science can develop more relevance and effectiveness for sustainability goals. The transfer into practice is also an important concern for David. Her next goal is to further develop functional cost splitting into an instrument that can also be understood by laypersons - preferably as an online tool.
Personal details:
Kirsten David is a guest researcher at HCU in the subject areas "Design and Analysis of Structures" with Prof. Dr.-Ing. Annette Bögle and "Construction Economics" with Prof. Dipl.-Ing. Reinhold Johrendt as well as a lecturer in the interdisciplinary study programmes. Her doctoral thesis was supervised by Prof. Dipl.-Ing. Reinhold Johrendt and Prof. Dr.-Ing. Thomas Krüger, (subject area "Project Management and Project Development in Urban Planning") and is freely available: https://edoc.sub.uni-hamburg.de//hcu/volltexte/2019/508/.
The current share of green electricity should not hide the fact that this federal government is blocking the energy transition at every turn. Take wind energy, for example: the government keeps delaying the additional tenders. Therefore, a massive slump is imminent in the next two years. This means job losses in a key industry of the future and a stagnating development in the share of wind power.
Take solar power, for example: no sooner has the solar power market picked up again after years of lull than the German government wants to massively cut the market premium for many installations. This emerges from the current draft bill for the Energy Collection Act. In doing so, the government would stall the positive development again. The cap of 52 gigawatts for solar power is also to remain in place.
Even if the government only wants to achieve its own targets, which are far too low, it must double the current production of green electricity by 2030. The course must be set for this now. But instead of finally accelerating the expansion of green electricity, the black-red coalition wants to continue to slow down, cap and delay. Not to mention transport and buildings, where the energy transition is not making any progress at all. In this way, the government continues to torpedo the urgently needed climate protection.
PM BÜNDNIS 90/DIE GRÜNEN in the German Bundestag of 2.11.2018
The state of Rhineland-Palatinate is providing funding of 150,000 euros for a local heating network in Gimbweiler, which is to be supplied in future by means of a solar thermal open-space system and a woodchip system.
"The planned local heating network will supply a total of more than 80 buildings in the village with renewable energy," says Thomas Griese, State Secretary at the Rhineland-Palatinate Ministry for the Environment, Energy, Food and Forestry (MUEEF): "This includes a sports hall and a multi-generation house. I am excited about this project, because we need the commitment of the municipalities for a successful heat and energy turnaround!"
Griese handed over the funding notification to Mayor Martin Samson for a sub-project of the local heating network: the connection lines and the house transfer stations. In addition, the Gimbweiler receives funds from the federal government from the national climate protection initiative.
In the "Nahwärmeverbund Gimbweiler", the regenerative heat is generated by two woodchip boilers and a solar thermal open-space system. The solar thermal supported heat generation in connection with two buffer storage tanks saves fuel resources in a special way and avoids CO2 emissions. A multi-generation house, a sports hall and more than 80 residential buildings are supplied with heat from renewable energies.
We use cookies to optimize our website and services.
Functional
Always active
Technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a particular service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network.
Preferences
The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that have not been requested by the subscriber or user.
Statistics
The technical storage or access, which is solely for statistical purposes.Technical storage or access used solely for anonymous statistical purposes. Without a subpoena, voluntary consent from your Internet service provider, or additional records from third parties, information stored or accessed for this purpose cannot generally be used alone to identify you.
Marketing
Technical storage or access is necessary to create user profiles, to send advertising or to track the user on a website or across multiple websites for similar marketing purposes.
