Innovative construction - simply future-proof

With reference to the study prepared by Prof. Dietmar Walberg for the 15th Housing Construction Day in Berlin, the presentation will show what costs can usually be expected for housing construction in 2024, what savings potential is possible by changing the building standard and how this could cover the existing demand for new buildings.

Is there no alternative to the complete refurbishment of existing housing stock to new-build standards? Are simpler strategies possibly more effective, cheaper and could they promote an acceleration of the energy-efficient refurbishment of existing buildings? In order to answer these questions, minimally invasive refurbishment approaches for a sustainable transformation of existing buildings are to be tested and reviewed in practice. To this end, different measures will be implemented and compared on seven identical GGH terraced houses in the Pfaffengrund estate in Heidelberg. The houses from the 1950s and 1960s are widespread and can be found in almost every city in Germany. A full refurbishment to the EH 55 standard serves as a reference variant.

The Einfach Bauen research group at the Technical University of Munich carries out energy consumption monitoring before and after the implementation of the refurbishment measures in the operation of the buildings, so that trends in changed user behavior (rebound effect) and the energy consumption predicted in the planning phase and measured in actual operation (performance gap) can be derived from this. The actual effects of different energy refurbishment strategies can thus be documented.

The basic principles of the individual refurbishment options were developed in the first half of 2024 so that construction work can begin in the same summer. The project is to be implemented in two construction phases. The second consumption monitoring can be carried out next winter. GGH is responsible for the planning, tendering, construction management and implementation of the refurbishment measures.

What measures is the Free State of Bavaria taking for simple and cost-effective construction? One concerns the "building type e". This goes back to an initiative of the Bavarian Chamber of Architects, which has also been joined by the Bavarian Chamber of Civil Engineers. Building under the slogan "Building type e" aims to put the multitude of standards and regulations to the test in order to be able to construct simpler and therefore more cost-effective and resource-saving buildings with standard-reduced and deviating solutions. The Bavarian Ministry of Construction wants to use pilot projects to find out how well this works in practice. Article 63 of the BayBO was amended in summer 2023 for this purpose. However, it will be of great importance for the idea of simple construction on which the "building type e" is based whether it will also be possible to create possibilities for deviations from the generally recognized rules of technology in civil law.

The complexity of constructions and building technology has been steadily increasing for decades. This affects the requirements for stability, heat, moisture, fire and noise protection, hygiene and health as well as general user comfort. This is reflected in an almost unmanageable and ever-increasing number of standards and building regulations. The intended goal of quality assurance is often not achieved: the result of this complexity is a high error rate in planning and execution as well as an excessive demand on building owners and users.

In the "Einfach Bauen" research project, strategies for low-tech buildings were developed and applied in three research houses in Bad Aibling. The results of the long-term measurements are now available and provide insights into the extent to which the assumptions have materialized in actual use. The three houses are compared in terms of environmental impact, costs and living comfort.

Based on an office building in Gräfelfing, this exciting topic will be shown and explained in built form and a brief outlook on further research will be given.