International facades - croft

Looking at Central European building projects illustrates an awareness of sustainability and the need to save energy. This trend is based on the finiteness of natural resources, and is thus wise to follow. Developments in this region including passive house technologies, and energy plus solutions that create more energy than they use have become realisable. But it is not increasing technological knowledge alone that supported these developments; the Central European climate makes it possible to invent technological solutions that allow for maximum comfort while maintaining low energy consumption.

Other regions have experienced a building boom over the past decades that has dramatically increased city sizes. A detailed examination of such building projects illustrates that most of them strive for the international standard with a high glazing ratio in the style of the Central European examples. But how can architecture be transferred to regions with entirely different climate conditions? The answer lies in the technological possibilities we have at our disposal today. The main research question of this thesis refers to utilising the local climate. Which methods are necessary to plan a building - and a façade as the interface between the inside and the outside, in particular - while working with, not against the climate?