Conversation with timber construction pioneer Erwin Thoma
Published
Broadcast: 11.12.2016
Talk: KenFM
Running time: 1 h 37 min 31 s
Table of contents:
00:10:25 The secret of trees: the perfect cycle
00:27:13 Lunar wood: How the moon influences growth
00:37:52 Real energy transition
00:41:16 Energy self-sufficient houses and: Why wood does not burn
00:50:06 Common good, big corporations and tax avoidance
01:02:55 Modern Thermodynamics: The Red Forest Ant Model
01:14:27 Diversity, role model, forest: the perfect cooperation network
01:20:57 The notion of sustainability in action
01:32:34 Man: part of nature or its master
The exhibition marking the halfway point of the IBA Heidelberg has opened: A rich accompanying programme attracted almost 1000 visitors from Thursday to Saturday, many of whom were visiting the exhibition venue, the Mark Twain Center in Heidelberg's Südstadt, for the first time.
The IBA SUMMIT, the biennial meeting of mayors, university rectors and urban planners from international "Knowledge Pearls" in Heidelberg, heralded the opening days of the IBA interim presentation on 26 April. Prof. Dr Eckart Würzner, Lord Mayor of the City of Heidelberg welcomed the guests from Stanford, Cambridge, Lund and Leuven with an introduction to the IBA: "The IBA Heidelberg is on an excellent path. It demonstrates how various strengths of our city can be interwoven. These include, for example, promoting education, developing environmentally friendly mobility, creating new living space and promoting climate-neutral urban development. The IBA has made a significant contribution to the sense of a new beginning in Heidelberg.
The vernissage of the exhibition took place at the Mark Twain Center on the evening of 27 April. Gunther Adler, State Secretary for Building, Housing and Urban Development in the Federal Ministry of the Interior spoke on the occasion about the "IBA" format from the federal government's point of view. According to Adler, the IBA is an important piece of German building culture that enjoys international renown and is worth every effort to pursue its claim to excellence. The IBA tradition encompasses many aspects: International relevance, next-practice projects, sustainable impact on the region and building culture standards. For the IBAs currently underway, it is sometimes difficult to fully meet these claims to excellence under the given framework conditions. "Nevertheless, we are seeing overwhelming results, which encourage us as a federal government to continue the quality offensive together - also within the framework of the IBA Heidelberg," the State Secretary emphasised. "We need the IBA to show us how we can find answers to relevant questions of current urban development using new and unusual methods and means - this is more urgent today than ever. The IBA's courage to experiment and to go beyond existing boundaries is important to address the quality of living, working and living in our cities in the future."
Jürgen Odszuck, First Mayor of the City of HeidelbergThe IBA's interim presentation provides an excellent overview of what it is doing in Heidelberg: it gives important new impulses on how we can further develop Heidelberg as the knowledge city of tomorrow. It promotes excellent building projects in our city. And it offers innovative approaches on how we can design processes more effectively and lead to even better results."
Michael Braum, Managing Director of the IBA Heidelberg, was pleased about the great response to the exhibition opening and welcomed the guests: "Innovation in the knowledge society uses its intellectual and creative resources. This changes the value system of the industrial society, in which diligence stood above creativity. Today, in the knowledge society, creativity may be more important than diligence. This also has implications for the city. Our cities will change more dynamically in the 21st century than they did in the course of industrialisation. This requires a new way of thinking in urban planning and architecture. The IBA would like to make a contribution to this, which can now be seen in this exhibition."
Carl Zillich, Curatorial Director of the IBA Heidelbergexplained the exhibition concept: "Before we present realised building projects for the knowledge city of tomorrow in 2022, we have focused at the halfway point on the actors, processes and ideas of the first five years. Together with the exhibition makers from 'Stiftung Freizeit', we have developed analogue and at the same time interactive forms of presentation. Thus, for different interests, individual glimpses behind the scenes of the IBA, the urban development of international science cities, but also Heidelberg institutions and initiatives are on offer. Numerous architectural models, pictures and plans have already aroused curiosity about the construction sites, which are now marked all over the city."
The opening days closed on Saturday, 28 April with a colourful programme, during which many young families in particular got an impression of the exhibition and the IBA projects.
The exhibition of the IBA interim presentation is now open until 8 July daily from Tuesdays to Sundays from 15.00 - 20.00, including public holidays.
More information about the exhibition, guided tours, registration or booking of individual group tours at: www.iba.heidelberg.de
Good news for the PV industry: The solar cap will be abolished and solar expansion will be further promoted. The photovoltaic potential in Germany is enormous - especially when it comes to using roof space on new buildings. The new LichtBlick SolarCheck now shows in detail how well the 14 largest German cities are currently exploiting this potential. Enormous differences are revealed: While Nuremberg (49.1%) and Hanover (46.8%) exploit almost half of their potential, Munich and Düsseldorf do not even reach the 10 percent hurdle. The absolute taillight: the Hanseatic city of Hamburg with only 7.2 percent - one more reason for the solar obligation for new buildings planned by the mayor's office.
To calculate the solar potential of the individual cities, the newly built roof areas were put in relation to the newly installed photovoltaic systems in the respective cities in 2018 (most recent figures). The result: the PV potential on roofs is barely exploited in most metropolitan regions in Germany. Yet every new roof without a solar installation is a wasted opportunity for climate protection and a consumer-oriented power supply. The vast majority of people in Germany want solar power from their roofs*.1
In view of the sobering results of the SolarCheck, Ralph Kampwirth, Head of Corporate Communications at LichtBlick, said: "We must finally bring the energy turnaround to the big cities - and the best way to do that is with solar power from the roof. Discussions about distance regulations for wind power or the use of agricultural land for PV plants show that the responsibility should not only lie with the rural population."
Converted to German households (average consumption 3,000 kWh), the possibilities of the individual cities become apparent: If Munich had fully exploited the potential of the new building roof areas, you could have supplied more than 10,000 households with solar power with the new solar areas built in 2018 alone, Hamburg around 11,500 households, in Berlin it would be 16,200 households." Especially in the megacities, only a small fraction of this is developed, as the SolarCheck shows.
About the research method: The market research company Statista determined the number of newly constructed residential and commercial buildings in 2018 for the 14 German cities with more than 500,000 inhabitants on the basis of data from the State Offices for Statistics and calculated the respective roof areas using scientifically based conversion factors.
The new housing development "Ludmilla Wohnpark" was built in Landshut with more than 180 residential units in plus-energy construction. Five single-family houses, two semi-detached houses, six terraced houses and eight multi-family houses with a total of 55 flats were built on a plot of around 7,300 square metres.
Researchers from Munich University of Applied Sciences and the Technical University of Dresden are evaluating the quarter and optimising the technology in operation. There is an initial report on this in the BINE-Info: www.bine.info/...plusenergie-konzept-in-siedlung-getestet
(the ESD info service was discontinued at the end of 2020)
From January 2017, the state capital Munich will also pay up to 2,000 euros in purchase premiums for privately used eCargobikes.
On 1 April 2016, the Munich-based Electromobility funding guideline into force. It introduced purchase premiums for commercial e-vehicles from pedelecs to e-cars. Since then, there has been a subsidy of 25 percent of the purchase price up to a maximum of 1000 euros for commercially used eCargobikes. In the first five months 86 applications approved. In addition, there is a 1000 euro scrapping premium if a car with an internal combustion engine is demonstrably permanently withdrawn from circulation.
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