Tschechisch Österreichischer Architektur-Dialog
Prague Architecture Week 2007
The construction sector is responsible for more than 40 % of the European energy consumption and more than 50 % of the material flow in Europe. These two indicators describe the importance of the construction sector for more sustainability in Europe in an impressive manner. One can be held tight: Europe will reach its targets for the reduction of green house gases (GHG) only if the energy efficiency of buildings will be improved in a large scale. And the overall environmental performance in Europe depends extremely on the decrease of non-renewable materials in the construction sector. In both categories the Austrian construction sector strengthened its activities during the last years. Measured by the amount of buildings per capita, Austria is the most important producer of passive houses and low energy houses in the world. In addition to this a lot of experience has been made for the replacement of non-renewable materials in all kinds of construction parts. Several examples document the possibility for an attractive interaction between architectural design and environmental aspects.
The ongoing discussion on architecture and environmental performance of buildings shows us new possibilities for the future: Sustainability within its wide dimension of activities between environment, social aspects and economy could be the core question for the "built environment" of the future. Architecture and design are forced to find new - sustainable - answers for their artefacts in kind of buildings, infrastructures and products. Usability, cost-efficiency during the life cycle, transparency for the users and technical solutions have to meet the requirements of sustainability and have to use modern architecture and design as their language. Contemporary Austrian architecture from both young and already established architects tries to offer solutions like this.
The workshop provides an overview about present and future activities in Austria in the field of sustainable housing and construction and shows powerful examples. It starts with an introduction by Robert Lechner, director of the Austrian Institute of Ecology (see www.ecology.at), about national actions and activities for the environmental improvement of the Austrian construction sector.
This introduction will be continued by three different examples of contemporary Austrian architecture and design. Much Untertrifaller (from "Dietrich - Untertrifaller"; see www.dietrich.untertrifaller.com) presents several examples for environmentally improved buildings on a high level. Johannes Kaufmann (from Johannes Kaufmann Architektur; see www.jkarch.at) owns a lot of experience in wooden architecture and design. And Gerhard Kopeinig (from Arch+more; see www.arch-more.com) is a very successful young Austrian architect in the field of energy efficient houses.
The workshop will be completed by several possibilities for discussion and interaction between the participants.
