Colt International, Arup, SSC GmbH

SolarLeaf, the world’s first bioreactive façade presented at the BIQ House, has been shortlisted for the Zumtobel Group Award 2014 in the “Applied Innovations” category.

The demonstrator, specially designed for last year’s International Building Exhibition (IBA) in Hamburg, is a four-story residential building comprising 200m2 of integrated photo-bioreactors which absorb CO2 emissions while cultivating microalgae to generate biomass and heat as renewable energy resources. The environment for photosynthesis is provided by glass photobioreactors installed on the southwest and southeast elevations.

Colt International, Arup. SSC GmbH

This passive-energy house also integrates additional functionalities such as dynamic shading, thermal insulation and noise abatement, highlighting the full potential of this technology.

Now that the technical feasibility of the system has been proven by the BIQ House the consortium is working on concepts for integrating the system on a larger scale to demonstrate the commercial benefits.

This passive-energy house also integrates additional functionalities such as dynamic shading, thermal insulation and noise abatement, highlighting the full potential of this technology.

The SolarLeaf was designed by Arup in collaboration with SSC Strategic Science Consult and Colt International and co-funded by ZukunftBau.

“The project became a milestone to create a new value chain and plays an important role in establishing surplus energy and zero carbon building clusters for the future.”

Jan Wurm, Arup’s Europe Research Leader

Colt International, Arup, SSC Gmbh

“With the bioreactor-facade and the integration of technical and biological cycles a new era of building construction has been marked. Colt is proud to have realized the first pilot project in collaboration with Arup and SSC and feel honoured that SolarLeaf is shortlisted for the prestigious Zumtobel Award.”

"With the bioreactor-façade and the integration of technical and biological cycles a new era of building construction has been marked. Colt feels honoured that SolarLeaf is shortlisted for the prestigious Zumtobel Award."

Lukas Verlage, Director at Colt

The Zumtobel Group Award – Innovations for Sustainability and Humanity in the Built Environment –  honours outstanding, sustainable solutions in architecture and engineering that make a notable contribution to the quality of life for the future.

For the 2014 award the "Applied Innovations" category has been added to sharpen the focus on urban developments and applied innovations in the built environment. The BIQ House project competes with another four projects, and the announcement of the laureates will be held on 22nd September at The Serpentine Galleries in London.

> via ARUP