Hasta La Ideas

News: the world’s first building to be powered entirely by algae is being piloted in Hamburg, Germany, by engineering firm Arup.

The “bio-adaptive facade”, which Arup says is the first of its kind, uses live microalgae growing in glass louvres to generate renewable energy and provide shade at the same time.

Installed in the BIQ building as part of the International Building Exhibition, the algae are continuously supplied with liquid nutrients and carbon dioxide via a water circuit running through the facade.

When they are ready to be harvested they are transferred as a thick pulp to the technical room inside the building and fermented in a biogas plant.

The facade also absorbs heat from the sun to warm the building’s hot water tank, while sunny weather encourages the algae’s growth to provide more shade for the building’s occupants.

“To use bio-chemical processes for adaptive shading is a really innovative and sustainable solution, so it is great to see it being tested in a real-life scenario,” said Jan Wurm, a research leader at Arup.

“As well as generating renewable energy and providing shade to keep the inside of the building cooler on sunny days, it also creates a visually interesting look that architects and building owners will like,” he added.

The project was led by Arup in cooperation with German consultancy SSC Strategic Science Consult and the building was designed for the exhibition by Austrian firm Splitterwerk Architects. The shading louvres were made in Germany by Colt International.

The International Building Exhibition in Hamburg continues until 3 November.

Algae-powered buildings have until now remained in the conceptual stage, with ideas for a building covered in modular algae pods and a biofuel-powered skyscraper in London previously featuring on Dezeen – see all algae architecture and design.

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Architects Francesco Di Gregorio and Karin Matz used spotty tiles, blue rope and pine to convert the hayloft of an old thatched farmhouse into an apartment on the small island of Föhr in Germany (+ slideshow).

The clients had already been living on the floor below but wanted to convert the attic to make room for their growing family, so the architects were brought into turn the old storage area into a liveable space with two additional bedrooms.

Francesco Di Gregorio and Karin Matz, who combined their studios in 2011, were keen to incorporate the Friesian heritage of the island into the interior. “The space is very much influenced by the place – its history, traditions and nature,” Matz told Dezeen.

She continued: “In the traditional houses at least one wall in the dining rooms would be covered in patterned tiles, as a way of showing wealth. Since we wanted to bring light into the house, we thought that tiles would be a great reflective material and at the same time something so present in all Friesan houses.”

The architects thus lined selected walls with over 3000 ceramic tiles. Each tile has an hole drilled into its centre, revealing the bright blue adhesive behind and creating a grid of pale blue polkadots.

“We never aimed to make the space feel modern,” added Matz, “but being an attic space we had the possibility to give the client an additional space which was very different from the old flat they have below.”

Blue cables suspended between the floor and ceiling form a balustrade around a staircase leading up from the ground floor.

Once inside, residents are faced with a long L-shaped living and dining room, with bedrooms and a kitchen lined up at the back.

Pale pine boards are used for flooring and kitchen furniture, plus more pine lines the walls of the bedrooms, where is has been painted in a vivid shade of turquoise.

Other recently completed apartments include a London residence where a staircase merges with a kitchen counter and a 1970s-inspired beach apartment in France. See more apartment design on Dezeen.

Photography is by Francesco Di Gregorio.

Here’s some extra information from the architects:

Föhr

The project is located on Föhr, a small island in the North Sea. In the village of Alkersum, inside a former hay storage of a traditional farmhouse, we redefine the whole space with a wood structure covered by 3,200 tiles, each with a hand-made circular hole, 500 mt of polypropylene blue rope and treated pine wood.

Due to its geographical location, Föhr is very much in the hands of natural forces. The area has a big tide. When the water is low you walk over to other islands. It is a flat island where 60% of the island is under sea level. To protect the island man made grass-walls surrounds half of the island. Still, every autumn when the big storm-floods arrive, the island go on alert. 1634 an enormous flood erased most of the houses on the island and reshaped the map. It is a though climate for permanent inhabitants; at the same time the island changes completely in the summer months when the population raise from 8500 to 40,000 due to tourism.

Föhr is an island belonging to Germany but first and foremost to Nordfriesland. The Friesians have their own language and culture. In the 17th century a school of navigation was founded on Föhr and many people became sea captains sailing on Asia and North America. Sailing on other countries brought back the tradition of ceramics and tiles from Asia. Being rich was to have as many painted Friesian tiles as possible on your dining room walls.

Wood used inside was painted in Friesian colors, which are different nuances of blue-green. Beds were traditionally in bed-boxes. Houses were always in brick with thatched roofs. The rooms were small, dark and all the same size.

The space as been re-opened by taking down all dividing walls except for the ones surrounding the bathroom. A new volume is added which becomes the central wall going through and unifying the space.

It is covered in ceramic tile with a simple pattern given by the blue cement holding them. Light is brought through the reflective ceramics and the translucent doors. Threads frame the staircase creating a transparent threshold. The bedrooms are dark bed-boxes, private like nests.

Often you only realize after what it is that you have done; we returned in the summer and we realize what we had build. A stranded ship.

Year: 2012
Client: Private
Location: Alkersum – Föhr – Germany
Project: Francesco Di Gregorio & Karin Matz

Construction: NCE Bygg AB
Electrician: Jörg Kottke dba Elektro Kottke
Plants: Heizungsbau Domeyer
Built area: 85 sqm
Status: Built

Above: floor plan – click for larger image

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and Francesco Di Gregorio appeared first on Dezeen.

German studio Fabi Architekten has stacked a black building on top of a white building to create this house in the Bavarian countryside (+ slideshow).

A rectilinear white volume nestles against the hill at the base of the house, providing a combined bedroom and washroom, while a black building shaped like an archetypal house sits on the top and contains a kitchen, dining area and living room.

Glazed walls line the facades of both storeys, offering views out over the landscape. “The volumes open up to the natural space, the forest,” said Fabi Architekten. “[It is] a minimal intrusion into the hillside topography.”

On the upper floor, the glass doors slide open to lead out to a triangular roof terrace, while on the level below they provide a second entrance to the house.

The main entrance is positioned on the side of the building and is sheltered beneath the overhanging corner of the first floor.

A cantilevered wooden staircase connects the two storeys.

The house is located in Wenzenbach and was completed in 2012.

Other houses completed in Germany recently include a gabled house in Metzingen and a residence in Stuttgart with an inclining profile. See more architecture in Germany.

Photography is by Herbert Stolz.

Above: lower floor plan

Above: upper floor plan

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by Fabi Architekten appeared first on Dezeen.

KHBT of London and Berlin has doubled the size a 1970s family house in Offenbach, Germany, by wrapping a timber-clad extension around the walls and over the roof (+ slideshow).

Named Haus Bergé, the family house was extended to create enough room for guests to stay.

The new structure climbs up on one side of the two-storey building and KHBT have also added an extra storey over the northern corner, altering the shape of the roof.

“The roof shape was developed through a continuation of the existing double monopitched roof,” architects Bernd Truempler and Karsten Huneck told Dezeen, explaining how they extended the surface in one direction before folding it around the chimney.

At ground level the grey brick walls are left exposed, while the upper floors are clad with wooden fins that have been painted in a weather-resistant mineral coating.

To carry the weight of the extension, the architects added additional supports to the house’s structure. “We had to punch through the existing first and ground floor in order to bear the new floor on its own structural elements,” explained Truempler and Huneck.

The staircase remains in its original position in the northern corner of the building but the architects have extended it upwards to connect the lower levels with the new top floor.

Other German houses we’ve featured on Dezeen include a red concrete residence outside Stuttgart and a house in Wiesbaden with a cinema on the roof.

See more houses in Germany »

Photography is by Johannes Marburg.

Above: ground floor plan

Above: section

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by KHBT appeared first on Dezeen.

German architects Kister Scheithauer Gross used Jewish symbol the Star of David to create patterned windows in the limestone walls of this synagogue in Ulm, Germany.

The town’s original synagogue was torn down in 1938 as part of the Kristallnacht, or “night of broken glass”, a series of attacks on Jewish community buildings within Nazi Germany.

Kister Scheithauer Gross (KSG) won a competition in 2010 to reinstate the building beside the site where its predecessor once stood.

“This position is historical,” said architect Susanne Gross. “In the Kristallnacht in 1938, the former synagogue was destroyed. After World War II, a secular building was constructed in the space. The synagogue and the Jewish community lost its ancestral place in the centre of Ulm.”

“The construction of the current synagogue has opened a new site, in the middle of the square,” she added. “It is as though the synagogue has taken a step forward from its former position; it has reclaimed its location.”

Both a synagogue and a Jewish community centre are contained within the cube, which stands apart from other buildings and faces out onto the town square. “With no constructed borders, it stands abrupt and solitary on the Weinhof,” said Gross.

The stone walls make reference to the traditional Jerusalem limestone of many buildings in Israel, but the architects had to source a more frost-resistant stone to suit the colder climate. “We searched for a limestone with a similar but frost-resistant appearance and found the Dietfurt limestone that is mined in Bavarian Dietfurt, about 110 kilometres away from Ulm,” said KSG’s Farina Kast.

Most rooms inside the building are laid out on an orthogonal grid. However the 125-seat prayer rooms points south-east towards Jerusalem – a typical feature in synagogue design.

“In the competition design, the prayer room was faced eastward. After we won and when the close collaboration with the client began, the Rabbi expressed the wish to have the prayer room aligned towards Jerusalem,” said Kast.

The sacral chamber is positioned at the end of this space, behind the star-shaped windows.

Above: site plan

Other Jewish community buildings we’ve featured include a ritual bathhouse in Mexico and a community centre in Mainz, Germany.

Above: historical site plan

Photography is by Christian Richters.

Here’s some more information from the architects:

ksg Completes Ulm Synagogue

kister scheithauer gross architects and urban planners (ksg) have completed the community centre and synagogue for the Jewish community of Ulm.

In 2009, the Israelite Religious Community in Württemberg (IRGW) decided to build a new synagogue for its orthodox community in Ulm and, together with the city of Ulm, initiated a competition. The city placed the building site in the middle of the Weinhof, just a stone’s throw from the former synagogue, which was destroyed during Kristallnacht.

“The team from Cologne succeeded in enriching this highly sensitive location in the city of Ulm, without detracting from its unique character,” said the city’s head of construction, Alexander Wetzig, following the jury’s decision in January 2010.

In the completed build, the cuboid is lower and shorter than initially planned during the competition. It is now 24 meters wide, 16 deep and at 17 meters high, much lower than the nearby Schwörhaus.

All the spaces of the community centre and the synagogue are joined in the smooth structure: foyer, synagogue, Mikvah (ritual bath), meeting hall, school and administrative rooms as well as the child day care centre with an enclosed outdoor playing area, which is directly above the sacral room.

The rooms are arranged orthogonally. Only the synagogue follows the line of the only, free-standing support in the building, in a diagonal direction. The direction facing south-east has an overlying religious meaning behind it: its geographical direction is directly towards Jerusalem, the spiritual and religious centre of Judaism.

The diagonal room layout creates a corner window in the sacral room, which plays with a pattern of the Star of David as a space framework. With 600 openings, the synagogue is illuminated from many points, with the focal point being the liturgical centrepiece; the Torah shrine. The perforations in the façade created with a high-pressure water jet, illuminate the shrine inside and project the idea of the synagogue outwards.

The interior fittings of the synagogue are partially based on ksg plans, such as the dodecagon holder, a symbol for the twelve lines of the people of Israel. Rabbi Shneur Trebnik, together with the IRGW representatives, selected the seating and ordered the construction of the Torah shrine, including the bimah, a raised platform with a lectern, from which the Torah is dictated. All three elements were constructed in Israel.

The prayer room offers space for 125 people, including 40 spaces in the women’s gallery. The building was full to capacity during the opening on Sunday, December 2nd 2012. The 300 invited guests included former Jewish citizens of Ulm, who fled during World War II. Speeches were held by Federal President of Germany Joachim Gauck, Prime Minister of Baden-Württemberg Winfried Kretschmann, the President of Central Council of Jews in Germany Dieter Graumann and Israel’s ambassador to Germany Yacov Hadas-Handelsman.

Client: Israelite Religious Community of Württemberg statutory corporation Hospitalstraße 36, 70174 Stuttgart, Germany
Board of directors: Barbara Traub, Susanne Jakubowski, Michael Kashi
Occupant: Rabbi Shneur Trebnik and the orthodox Jewish community of Ulm
Authorities: City of Ulm, Germany
Mayor: Ivo Gönner
Head of construction: Alexander Wetzig
Architects: kister scheithauer gross architects and urban planners, Cologne
Design/responsible partner: Prof. Susanne Gross
Project manager, artistic director: Grzegorz Rybacki
Team: Fritz Keuten, Matthes Langhinrichs, Stefan Schwarz, Paul Youk
Project management: nps Bauprojektmanagement GmbH, Ulm, Germany
General contractor: Matthäus Schmid Bauunternehmen GmbH & Co. KG, Baltringen, Germany

Consultants in the competition and design phase
Structural analysis: Dr.-Ing. W.Naumann & Partner, Köln
Thermo gravimetric analysis: ZWP AG, Köln
Acoustics: ISRW Dr.-Ing. Klapdor GmbH, Düsseldorf
Building physics: Ing.-Büro für Bauphysik Heinrichs, Köln
Fire safety: BFT Cognos, Aachen

Competition: 11/2009
Performance time: 2010-2012
Start of construction: 03/2011
Completion: 12/2012
Gross floor space: 1.980 m²
Performance phases: 1 – 4 plus artistic direction and master details
Construction costs: 4.6 million euros

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Kister Scheithauer Gross appeared first on Dezeen.