1982 - Wohnanlage Richter

Back in 1982 Thomas Herzog and Bernard Schilling designed a residential building whose overall form results almost exclusively from considerations about passive solar technology. On a narrow parcel of land located in Milbersthofen, a district of Munich, the architects were tasked with a building that should host four separate units. What is more important is that the contractor requested a prototypical building which should be glazed, light, transparent and should provide the possibility of installing solar technology. The building itself is a wooden skeleton within which are lined up individual house units. On the south facade a second shell is created through the sloped glass surface allowing to create a buffer area with and intermediate temperature range. The outer, southern glass slope consists of a slightly modified greenhouse construction with aluminium profiles and toughened safety glass. The inner glass slope is made of double-pane insulating glass. The Fraunhofer institute of Freiburg installed on the upper part of the outer glass slope approximately 60 m² of solar cells developed and manufactured by AEG and Siemens. These cells are part of the first integrated solar installation on a glass surface. The produced energy is consumed in the house, stored in batteries or fed in the urban grid.