Photos: Roland Halbe / Herz & Lang
Museum of Arts, Ravensburg
visitors to the museum help to compensate. "The passive house principle of keeping the heat inside the building turned out to work extremely well in this context," says Lang.
Words: Lenny Antonelli & Stephen Quinn
The building was designed by Stuttgart architects Lederer RagnarsdĂłttir Oei and built by construction firm Reisch.
The world's first certified passive house museum opened in Ravensburg, Germany earlier this year. The museum houses the private art collection of advertising executive Peter Selinka, who died in 2006, and his wife Gudrun. Their collection features works of German expressionism and the avant-garde COBRA movement. The external walls are constructed from a cavity wall system: on the outside, 200-year old bricks recovered from a demolished monastery, and behind this 240mm of mineral wool insulation, followed inside by concrete blocks. "The greatest challenge was the small number of windows," says Florian Lang of Bavarian firm Herz & Lang, who were responsible for passive house planning and certification on the project. Artwork cannot tolerate natural light and is best displayed under artificial lighting, but this reduces the building's solar energy gains. However, internal heat gains from
this kind." Heating and cooling — plus humidification and dehumidification — takes place via a ground source heat pump paired with a gas absorption heat pump. Conditions in the exhibition rooms must be kept very close to 20C and 50% humidity throughout the year.
Some of the building's components had to be re-thought to meet the passive house standard. Cavity wall brackets with minimal steel content were developed to cut thermal bridging across the wall cavity, while the team even came up with a new Passive House Institute certified revolving door for the entrance.
"In the end, it turned out that passive house was the perfect solution for the high indoor environmental quality necessary for these valuable pieces of art," says Florian Lang.
Passive House Institute founder Dr Wolfgang Feist says this is a typical example of how the low energy standard can drive innovation.
Stephen Quinn is a civil engineer with Herz & Lang.
"The passive house is an innovation engine. In particular small and medium businesses have always met the challenges head on and developed many new and improved 'made in Europe' products, which have significantly improved energy efficiency," he says. "I very much hope that the museum in Ravensburg becomes a model for many other projects of
For further information please visit: www.passivehouse.ie
Want to know more? Click here to view additional information on these projects, including an online gallery featuring illustrations, photographs, and project overview panels. This content is exclusively available to our digital subscribers.