Last year, an interdisciplinary team from four different faculties of Hochschule Düsseldorf – University of Applied Sciences conducted by the Institute for sustainable urban development (In-LUST) applied for the participation in the student competition ‹Solar Decathlon Europe 2021›. It was worth the effort: On January 16, 2020, the HSD was selected as one of 18 international teams to introduce their visions, concepts and products to solve an architectural planning task to cope with inner-city build-up and with a fitting realization of a 1:1-House Demonstration Unit in Wuppertal. The teams should put their concepts for sustainable, energy-efficient and socially acceptable architecture into practice.
Originally initiated by the energy ministry of the United States in 2002, the first European variation of the international university competition took place in Madrid in 2010. With SDE21, the worldwide 21st edition of the competition comes the first time to Germany – with a new urban profile. The participating teams face the truly challenges of an energetic urban redevelopment: renovation, extension, closing gaps and addition of storey.
Besides architectural, procedural and technical challenges, the teams are confronted with informing, fascinating and enabling the people in the district and beyond to be part of an urban energy transformation. At the same time, an empowerment concept will be developed and researched in the living lab to also provide solutions for none-technical aspects of the urban energy transformation.
The 18 university teams have about two years to conceptualize and plan their buildings. In August 2021, they are building a demonstration unit of their buildings in the form of fully operative, one- to two-stories residential buildings on a 22,000 square kilometer big land of the ‹Utopiastadt Campus› at the Nordbahntrasse in Wuppertal. The competition combines ten disciplines in which the teams are competing against each other with their projects:
- Architecture
- Engineering & Construction
- Energy Performance
- Affordability & Viability
- Communication, Education & Social Awareness
- Sustainability
- Comfort
- House Functioning
- Urban Mobility
- Innovation
For HSD, the nomination for participation is both a first big ‹stage win› but also a proof of the well-functioning interdisciplinary collaboration of the faculties. Besides the coordination through In-LUST, teaching staff and students from the faculties of Architecture, Mechanical & Process Engineering, Social Sciences & Cultural Studies and Electrical Engineering & Information Technology participate.
See https://sde21.eu/ for further information.