abstract: Development of a user-friendly life cycle assessment tool integrated into the planning process with BEIBOB Medienfreunde Lode, Mathes, Möller GBR and the Department of Design and Energy Efficient Building, TU Darmstadt

abstract: Minimum-Impact-House is a holistic approach for the reduction of the overall-impact of residential housing by creating a new type of house in order to densify the city centre. In the design project a prototype mini-house has been developed to explore the potential of so far uninhabitable urban niches. A triangular site of only 29sqm was chosen to built a mini-house in size comparable to a family house of 150sqm. This strategy avoids the further use of land and the need of building new infrastructure like streets and public institutions. The city centre is denser and ways are shorter so that the inhabitants can get all the advantages the city center offers as well as close local recreation areas. In a research project the prototype was compared to a typical suburban house. A life-cycle-analysis quantified the amounts of energy, material, and investment for the construction during an estimated life-span of the buildings of 50 years. The analysis for which a software was developed was also used as a design-tool for optimising the prototype-building in terms of energy-consumption, construction, and materials. For the building construction renewable resources, mainly timber, have been used which reduces the energy content and emissions.

abstract: Densifying the city centre is a chance for new architecture and redefining the urban structure. During the last century planning and building was focused on suburbs and big commercial and public buildings often missing the one-to-one experience of the people. Urban life needs small spaces and niches to flourish. People need chances to build their own homes that they can identify with rather than picking one in thousand generic suburban terraced houses. For the prototype new spatial strategies were developed: The house seems to be a lot bigger than its size suggests because to the vertical organisation. Vertical connections, which will later on in the construction be separated by glass walls and ceilings let the space appear bigger: Every floor has its own character and atmosphere. Privacy can be established by moving up one level after the other. An important agenda of the project was to create a new image for sustainable building. Positioning a prototype sustainable building in the heart of the city centre demonstrates the potential of this typology. The image gives this idea an appropriate expression. We developed the facade from the history of the site: Since it was not used since after the war wild trees had grown there to an impressive size, which gave the place a unique atmosphere. Due to an illness the trees were nearly falling over and had to be removed. The facade to the building shows the shadows of the leaves of those absent trees.

abstract: The city of Offenbach has 28 schools with a total of 50 buildings. Since most of them urgently need energetic refitting it was the focus of this research to develope a method which can calculate and compare the energy consumption of all the buildings in order to how the public investments during the next decade can be applied most efficiently.

abstract: Material Innovations: Research and Development Project for New Uses for Polyurethan-Foams