In a three-minute film, Düsseldorf Mayor Dr. Stephan Keller talks about the Solar Decathlon Europe and our Team MIMO. He is pleased about the participation of our team in the competition and emphasizes the importance for climate-friendly solutions not only in Düsseldorf but around the world.
Below you can read the full translated text of his speech:
Ladies and Gentlemen
I would like to extend my warmest greetings to you on the occasion of your participation in the Solar Decathlon Europe 2022. In this international student competition, you are focusing on climate change and its effects. Man-made climate change is one of the greatest challenges of our time. Even here in Düsseldorf, the changing climatic conditions are clearly noticeable due to increasingly frequent extreme weather events such as storms, heavy rain or longer periods of heat. Climate change is thus shaping habitats in Düsseldorf and around the world. Climate protection must begin directly on the ground – this is particularly true for the major cities. Düsseldorf wants to play a pioneering role and become climate-neutral by 2035. This requires efforts at all levels. On the way to a climate-neutral and sustainable state capital, it is crucial that we initiate an energy and heating turnaround. The building sector plays a key role here.Düsseldorf University of Applied Sciences is taking part in the Solar Decathlon Europe competition with a groundbreaking contribution that an interdisciplinary team of around 60 students, academic staff, professors from all seven HSD departments [has] developed. The name for this contribution is well and aptly chosen: MIMO Minimal Impact Maximum Output. This stands for the approach on site in the neighborhood and for the residents to do exactly what promises added value. It contains approaches that are also particularly relevant to our city with our limited land resources and housing shortages. In the project, you are looking at careful redensification by adding ecologically and economically sustainable residential modules to an existing building. Your team is also developing innovative energy concepts for heat and power supply, integrated mobility solutions and cross-generational low-barrier, urban living in one house.
In addition to the core disciplines of architecture, building services engineering and building physics, sustainability and energy performance, Team MIMO also aims to demonstrate innovative approaches in communication and feasibility and to put them into context. Ideas that we in Düsseldorf are happy to take up – but for which we also stand as a city with charisma and an architectural hotspot. With the project that Düsseldorf University of Applied Sciences is presenting at the Solar Decathlon Europe in Wuppertal, it is underlining its know-how and its competence in research, development and implementation.
HSD is an important part of Düsseldorf as an innovation location, involves a large number of regional partners and shows how much talent we have in Düsseldorf and the region. In this respect, its involvement is not only significant within the university, but also with a view to the entire city. I wish you every success in the competition and lots of fun, stamina and really good ideas along the way.
Dr. Stephan Keller, mayor of Düsseldorf