Messages in 2013

9/2013: IBA Berlin 2020 Preliminary Studies
the downloads of the IBA Berlin 2020 preliminary studies are available here:
www.stadtentwicklung.berlin.de/.../iba/de/studien.shtml

8/2013: DIN standards on earthen building come into force
Since August 2013, binding standards for earthen construction have come into force in Germany for the first time since 1971. They apply to clay blocks, clay masonry and clay plaster mortars. This means that earth as a building material has finally arrived in contemporary construction. For non-standardised and on-site produced earthen building materials, the earthen building rules first published in 1998 continue to apply. With the current revision of the interior plaster application standard DIN 18550-2, the course has been set towards Europe-wide recognition of the material.
www.claytec.de/...din-normen-lehm-2013.html

6/2013: New timber construction magazine
"We want to show you wood" says the editorial team of lignardo, the first German architecture magazine dedicated exclusively to wood as a building material. lignardo is in intensive exchange with renowned architects and industry experts: Prof. Herrmann Kaufmann, Prof. Ludger Dederich, Prof. Uwe Germerott, architect Frank Lattke and architect Florian Lichtblau support an experienced editorial team that has been active in the timber construction industry for many years. This is how the print premiere "Award-winning timber buildings" came into being at the beginning of June. With six printed issues per year, lignardo will in future concentrate monothematically on one building task each, because timber construction will play a very special role in this century.
www.lignardo.de

5/2013: Polystyrene thermal insulation - The madness continues: The consequences of insulating with polystyrene can be devastating: for the living climate and also in case of fire. Who benefits from the constantly tightened energy-saving regulations?

Styrofoam as a façade insulation material is often the material of choice when houses are to be thermally insulated. But this can have devastating consequences: for the indoor climate and also in case of fire. Already at the end of 2011, NDR dealt with the topic of thermal insulation and pointed out risks and problems. Above all, the fire test with the insulating material polystyrene caused a sensation throughout Germany. In the second part, in which further in-depth research was carried out, the question still arises: Who really benefits from constantly tightened energy-saving regulations and the boom in thermal insulation composite systems fuelled by them: the residents, the environment or the lobby?

Here is the film from the end of 2012: www.ndr.de/...minuten667
and supplementary NDR information: www.ndr.de/...waermedaemmung

4/2013: No health risks from electrosmog from photovoltaic systems:
www.wilabonn.de/...elektromagnetische-strahlung-durch-pv

3/2013: Model buildings searched for on gutebaustoffe.de:
www.gutebaustoffe.de/modellbauwerke.html

Largest Sustainable Settlement in Europe there are with 2,900 flats on an area of 170 ha in Holland: Stad van de Zon (City of the Sun) Heerhugowaard
www.heerhugowaardstadvandezon.nl

First German PlusEnergy School near Augsburg
http://informationsdienst-holz.de/…plusenergy school

Largest plus-energy building with 78 rental flats of the municipal housing association ABG in Frankfurt

Photovoltaic systems are planned on the slightly sloping roof, on the windows and on the façade of the building. At the same time, heat is recovered from the waste water. All of this is enough to achieve a surplus of around ten percent after consumption in the entire house, says Junker. This surplus can be used for the electric car, for example. The ABG, which cooperates with the car-sharing provider Book 'n Drive, will provide five cars and an electricity charging station on the ground floor of the building, which does not have a basement. Unused electricity from the car can also be fed back into the storage system. It is "energy-autarkic", meaning it could completely disconnect from the general electricity grid.
www.fr-online.de/frankfurt/wohnungsbau-frankfurt-energie-im-ueberfluss,1472798,20352740.html

2/2013: Photovoltaics statistics updated: 32.4 GW connected to the grid in Germany
Whereas in 2000 there were just 400 megawatts of PV capacity installed in Germany, today there are 32,389 megawatts or around 32.4 gigawatts.
www.solarserver.de/...photovoltaik-statistik.html

Photovoltaics annual review 2012: Multi-layered markets in upheaval
As expected, 2012 was a difficult year for the global photovoltaic industry. Production capacities were consistently too high, and this caused price collapses along the value chain, negative margins and losses for photovoltaic manufacturers. Despite these difficulties, the global photovoltaic market grew by 10-17 % in 2012 to around 31-33 GW, even established markets like Germany continued to grow. The latest figures from the German Ministry of the Environment show that the photovoltaic market in Germany reached a volume of 7.6 GW by the end of the year, despite the cut in the solar power feed-in tariff. This is again a World record for annual installed PV capacity. The Chinese photovoltaic market probably doubled again in 2012. Final figures are not yet available, but if the estimate by IMS Research from last October is correct, China would be the second largest PV market in the world with 5 GW. The installed capacity includes not only the plants that have been approved for feed-in tariffs, but also those from the "Golden Sun" programme with a total of 1.7 GW.
www.solarserver.de/...photovoltaik-jahresrueckblick-2012

Terra Preta - The new grassroots revolution
Save the climate and defeat world hunger with kitchen waste, vegetable charcoal and earthworms? Science believes it has found the recipe: Terra Preta do Indio, the "black gold". Ute Scheub, Haiko Pieplow and Hans-Peter Schmidt have written in "Terra Preta. The Black Revolution from the Rainforest", Ute Scheub and Haiko Pieplow have compiled the knowledge about the most fertile soil in the world. "Black soil - produced by farmers and smallholders, hobby gardeners and slum dwellers - can trigger a literal grassroots revolution," says Scheub.
www.oekom.de/nc/buecher/buechersuche/buch/terra-preta-die-schwarze-revolution-aus-dem-regenwald.html

1/2013: New DBU brochure on resource-efficient building and living
www.dbu.de/...

Rolf Disch builds Plusenergiesiedlung in Grenzach near Basel with 74 flats
www.rolfdisch.de/...

Brave New World: Megacities in China
www.zeit.de/...density-2