Multi Housing News September 2012 : Page 56
Rolf Disch, Rolf Disch Solar Architecture described by the U.S. Department of En-ergy, relies predominantly on a building’s windows, walls and fl oors to collect, store and distribute solar energy to provide heat in the winter and reduce the impact of the hot sun in the summer. Indeed, it is not a novel idea. In fact, as the agency notes, an-cient civilizations incorporated principals of passive solar design. “What is new are building materials, methods and software that can improve the design and integra-tion of passive [and active] solar principles into modern residential structures.” Disch has been in the solar architecture modern-ization game since the early 1970s. Photovoltaic panels are just one com-ponent of Disch’s PlusEnergy projects, the fi rst of which was the Heliotrope—the architect’s 2,200-square-foot home in Freiburg, Germany, built in 1994. In ad-dition to active solar energy features like photovoltaic panels, Disch’s PlusEnergy properties make use of the sun—and ward it off, when appropriate—through such components as canopied roofs, heat-ab-sorbing windows and glazing and thermal insulation. In 2000, Disch conceived The Schlierberg Solar Settlement, a housing community in Freiburg’s über-green Vau-ban district. The development features 85,000 square feet of residential space consisting of 50 two-and three-story units and, on the roof of the complex’s Sun Ship offi ce building, nine penthouses. Other high-performing, Disch-designed proper-ties include Bürkle-Bleiche Senior Center Living Center in Emmendingen, which of-fers 59 independent-living apartments. If the rest of the world is waiting for ad-vances in solar architecture before fully embracing the practice, they’re wasting time. “We don’t need a lot of new technol-ogy or new concepts; it’s all there now, it’s all in the market,” Tobias asserts. “When we started doing these things 20 years ago, we had to invent a lot of the things that we needed, like certain win-dow frames with good insulation, but this is state-of-the art and you can get it—you just have to apply it. The innovation is done and we have to spread it. We just have to apply it.” There hasn’t been a great deal of ac-tion outside of Germany, but the interest is there. Representing Disch Solar Archi-these countries where we have done some things [in solar architecture],” he recalls. “I was talking to developers and architects there and they’re discussing things now that we solved 15 years ago. It was very similar to the things that I was talking to people about in Russia. But of course, in the U.S., there are architects who are inno-vative and who want to do things.” One of the issues responsible for the de-layed reaction in solar architecture is, not surprisingly, money. “I think the problem is the development companies, really. They are rather conservative. They want to try to earn money with the kind of project that they have always done and they don’t want to change that.” But change is good, and the trail-blazing Disch is hardly fi nished providing an exam-ple to the architectural industry across the globe. “Sooner or later residents will want more, even the developers will, because nobody can afford the energy costs any-more,” Bube notes. “And also, the prices “ We don’t need a lot of new technology or new concepts. It’s all there now. It’s all in the market.” tecture, Bube recently traveled to Mexico and Russia, and he has been asked to share his presentations in China on many occasions. “We all have the same prob-lems,” he explains. “We have climate change. In countries like the U.S. and in Germany, buildings account for almost one-half of energy consumption and we are running out of fossil fuels. Everyone has the same problem, so they’re inter-ested in energy effi ciency.” Bube has also spoken in the U.S. on PlusEnergy. “My impression is that the U.S. is really several years behind the development here in Germany and Swit-zerland and Austria and Denmark and all for the energy technology are going down, so that’s good news.” The famed architect’s work is not done in Germany, either. “The real problem is not the new buildings; it’s the existing build-ings,” Bube says. “We have a refurbish-ment rate in Germany of one percent, which means we need 100 years until we have done energy optimization for all the build-ings that we have, and we don’t have these 100 years. So we have to speed up there.” Rolf Disch and team will speed up, and the rest of us, sooner or later, will follow. MHN To comment on this story, e-mail Diana Mosher at dmosher@multi-housingnews.com 56 September 2012 | Multi-Housing News
Publication List
Using a screen reader? Click Here