Projects and References

The development of solar water desalination plants is a promising approach to sustainable water treatment in water-scarce regions. At the Fraunhofer Institute for Building Physics IBP, several projects have been carried out in order to advance this technology. The aim was to evaluate the technical feasibility, identify optimisation potential and create the basis for market maturity.

Radiation concentrations due to focusing glass facades can cause material damage (for instance, failure of plastics, e.g. seals in facades) and induce annoying glare problems, which may even impair visual functions.

Every year, numerous art objects and monuments are enclosed to protect them against the weather, typically using wooden structures. However, the resulting humid indoor climate of these enclosures promotes microbial growth and increases freeze-thaw damage, often leading to expensive restorations. The project partners have therefore developed a modular enclosure system for outdoor cultural assets exposed to the elements, using transparent membranes and an innovative ventilation system. This ensures effective moisture removal under all weather conditions and eliminates moisture as the main cause of damage. Through a self-regulating ventilation system, the enclosure maintains a drier interior climate, allowing the enclosed artifacts to dry quickly and remain dry. This prevents freeze-thaw cycles from causing damage. The modular design facilitates assembly, disassembly, and storage, so that art objects both remain visible and are better protected.

Municipalities are faced with the challenge of adapting to climate change. On the one hand, they have to choose effective and sustainable measures, and on the other hand, they have to take into account the interests of residents and act under cost pressure. Key areas where cities need to take action include structural and spatial design and urban use of land. More about this in the Buolus project.

The Wild Climate Wall is an innovative green facade system designed to enhance biodiversity and climate resilience in densely built urban environments. By integrating native wild shrubs, herbs, and grasses, along with specially selected modular habitat systems (providing breeding and nesting spaces for wild bees, birds, and bats), the Wild Climate Wall offers a unique and heterogeneous diversity of plants and structures for vertical greening.

Climate change has significant impacts on our lives. Over the next few decades, extreme weather events such as heat waves, heavy rain, and flooding will continue to increase. In addition, gradual changes such as the shifting of precipitation patterns and rising annual average temperatures with more extreme heat days in the future are expected. As part of the pilot project “Climate Adaptation in Cultural Institutions”, 20 cultural institutions, including museums, libraries, theaters, socio-cultural institutions and park facilities, are being examined with regard to their vulnerability to location-specific climate-related changes, and climate adaptation measures are being developed. Based on these assessments, tailored adaption measures will be developed, considering structural, organizational, and programmatic potentials. The project focuses not only on protecting people, but also on safeguarding the buildings themselves and their often historically valuable interiors.

In growing cities, more and more surfaces are being sealed. This increases the contact of rainwater with materials, e.g. roofs, resulting in the contamination of precipitation runoff with harmful substances. However, no clear or statistically relevant information on pollutant emissions is available for most roof materials, as hardly any studies have been carried out and these are usually based on one-off random samples. General conditions such as atmospheric influences or gutter material, are often not sufficiently described. There is therefore a considerable need for research in order to draw scientifically sound conclusions about pollutants in precipitation runoff from non-metal roofs.

IMEDAS is an in-house software development for measurement, control and regulation of test benches.

Although modern thermal glazing reduces a building’s energy requirements, it also has an impact on sound insulation.

To achieve a biological transformation, material flows must be considered as a whole and biointelligent solutions found for them. Closed material cycles are essential. For the insulating material, biological raw materials as well as residual materials are bonded together by mycelial growth.