Monthly Archive: March 2017

Frey Architekten’s Heidelberg Village Named Finalist in Fast Company’s 2017 WORLD CHANGING IDEAS AWARDS. Other Honorees include AIRBNB, GE, etsy and Microsoft.

Freiburg, March 27, 2017 —Fast Company has named Frey Architekten’s Heidelberg Village one of the finalists for its premiere World Changing Ideas Awards, which honor businesses, policies, projects, and concepts that offer innovative solutions to the issues facing humanity. All of the finalists are highlighted in the April issue of the print magazine, which hits newsstands on March 27.

Peking, 03.22.2017 – The „International Conference on Green and Energy-Efficient Building & New Technologies and Products Expo“ (IGEBC) is taking place for the thirteenth time in China’s capital city with over 3,000 participants including politicians, business leaders and scientists as well as 300 exhibitors from around the world. Wolfgang Frey, an internationally recognized expert in sustainable urban planning and ecological construction, has been invited as a speaker once again.

On March 20, 2017, Mr. Wolfgang Frey, chairman of Frey Architekten Group, Ms. Jiakun Wang, partner & CEO of China region and Mr. Zhiyong Xu, secretary-general of Passive House Alliance of China visited the construction site of “Honggu Yipin” passive house kindergarten which is located in Nanchang, Jiangxi.

The European Union has created one of the world’s strongest financially backed programs for research and innovation entitled Horizon 2020. About €80 billion will be used to support sustainable development in Europe. Together with its partners, the Eco-City of Freiburg is paving the way, turning the city into a smart one. The Smart Green Tower by Frey Architekten is a flagship project in this effort.

In the city of Heidelberg, a relic of German romanticism on the banks of the river Necker, people are being interviewed to live in a special kind of house. This is not Germany’s version of Big Brother, though in some respects it is a kind of residential social experiment. Heidelberg Village is the largest passive housing complex in the world. Set on 6,100 square metres of land, it takes the principles of sustainable Passivhaus design and expands it to include a social perspective. The result is a prototype for multi-generational living that encourages a sense of community.

Visual construction diary of the construction site for the project „Heidelberg Village“

Status: 03.02.2017

Asia’s Largest Passive House development is currently under construction on a site covering almost 200 acres in Qingdao, China. Patrick Kingsland spoke to Germany-based architect Wolfgang Frey, who previously designed the world’s largest passive house settlement, about the challenges and benefits of passive house design.