BIQ – Das Algenhaus – The Clever Treefrog in Hamburg, Germany by SPLITTERWERK

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This visionary “Case Study House” featuring the first algae bioreactor façade world-wide was realised in the frame of the International Building Exhibition (IBA) in Hamburg in 2012 and 2013. As a “Smart Material House”, it combines intelligent materials and technologies with new typologies of living.

Image Courtesy © Paul Ott

• Architects: SPLITTERWERK
• Project: BIQ – Das Algenhaus – The Clever Treefrog
• Location: Am Inselpark 17, 21109 Hamburg, Germany
  
• Photography: Paul Ott
• Client and investor: KOS Wulff Immobilien GmbH
• Co-investor: SSC Strategic Science Consult GmbH
• Idea, Concept & Authorship: SPLITTERWERK, Label for Fine Arts and Engineering, Graz; Arup GmbH, Berlin; B+G Ingenieure Bollinger und Grohmann GmbH, Frankfurt; Immosolar GmbH, Hamburg
• Project Team SPLITTERWERK: Mark Blaschitz, Edith Hemmrich, Max Juengling, Josef Roschitz, Ingrid Somitsch
• Planning Partner Hamburg: Arup GmbH, Berlin; sprenger von der lippe; Timm & Goullon; Technisches Buero der Otto Wulff Bauunternehmung GmbH
• Construction Management: Otto Wulff Bauunternehmung GmbH
• Built-up Area: ca. 1600 sqm
• Start of construction: 2012
• Completion: 2013

Image Courtesy © Paul Ott

Setting the scene with its two red-white-red-white striped sunny-sided algae bioreactor façades, this janiform structure is reminiscent of the colours associated with the Free and Hanseatic city of Hamburg, or if you like, with the Alpine Republic of Austria – but above all – they emphasize the uniqueness of this multi-storey residential building and its prototypical method of producing energy and regulating light and sun-shading. At close range, the façades – oscillating from afar through the constantly growing algae – start to move; bubbles forming through the supply of carbon dioxide and nitrogen, as well as the permanently essential circulation of water containing aerosol-like microalgae, seem to suggest that biomass production could be a solar-powered art installation, steadily bubbling along.

Image Courtesy © Paul Ott

From afar, you can already read two giant speech bubbles with black letters against a white background shown on the two green shady façades with their tiny windows, the first bubble asking “Photosynthesis?” and the second replying “Cool!”. “Realisation also means communication”, SPLITTERWERK engineers, architects and artists assert and let the top of two penthouse façades entwine with grape-vine ornaments.

Image Courtesy © Paul Ott

Energy hybrid
Thanks to the hybrid functionality of its algae façade, this building combines various processes of regenerative energy production to create a sustainable circulation system: solar heat, geothermal energy, biomass and a fuel cell together form three storable energy sources in the form of heat, electricity and biogas. Moreover, the façade fulfils all functions expected of a conventional building cladding: it not only acts as a thermal and sound insulation, but also as a sun shield.

Image Courtesy © Paul Ott

130 translucent, plate-shaped glass containers – so-called photo bioreactors – are composed of two structurally bonded glass panes, the outer structural glass pane having been manufactured as a photovoltaic glass module. In the container itself, microalgae are cultivated in a watery culture medium that then perform photosynthesis by absorbing natural light, subsequently also producing biomass when supplied with carbon dioxide and the nutrients nitrogen and phosphor. They are able to store carbon dioxide and produce biogas in the in-house fuel cell which generates 4,500 kWh per year. Moreover, the photo bioreactors’ solar thermal function additionally produces around 32 MW heat per year that can either be directly used in the house or fed into the local power network, or alternatively, temporarily stored underground.

Image Courtesy © Paul Ott

Residential typology
Whether it be Mies van der Rohe’s flowing space, Frank Lloyd Wright’s open floor plan, or Adolf Loos’s “Raumplan”, not to mention Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky’s economical Frankfurt Kitchen – their contemporary development is incorporated in the intelligent residential typologies of the “Case Study House” Clever Treefrog. In the adjustable structure of these new residential typologies, functional spaces can be alternately or simultaneously attached or detached on demand. The Loos plan thus becomes an individual and time-oriented living plan. The appearance of living space is dominated by user-oriented living requirements and changes of programme. Accordingly, “Smart Spaces” develop from the “Hamburg apartment” and “Milan apartment” with different typologies of reconfigurable floor plans.

Image Courtesy © Paul Ott

Reconception
The “Incidents – We Love It!” series, on which SPLITTERWERK have been working since 2012, are at the same time pursuing strategies of reconception, assertion and appropriation. By using different classifications for “incidents” (German: Vorfälle, Ereignisse, Fehler, amongst others) found in their architecture, SPLITTERWERK claim them as works of art, at the same time confirming their authorship by means of naming and labelling the works. With this reinterpretation and appropriation, SPLITTERWERK reunite international architectural developments which are increasingly drifting apart in terms of conception, design, detailed design and realisation.

The “BIQ – the Algae House – the Clever Treefrog” project presented at the International Building Exhibition in Hamburg was able to realise the three works “The Hamburg Apartment Incident”, “The Milan Apartment Incident” and “The Speech Bubble Incident”.

Image Courtesy © Paul Ott

Image Courtesy © Paul Ott

Image Courtesy © SPLITTERWERK

Image Courtesy © SPLITTERWERK

Image Courtesy © SPLITTERWERK

Image Courtesy © SPLITTERWERK

Image Courtesy © SPLITTERWERK

Tags: Germany, Hamburg

Category: Building

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