Grey Energy Matters!

What value is stored in our built environment? And how can we asses this resource? What role do architects, planners, and engineers play in revaluating what lies vast and forgotten, bringing it back to a purpose and thus saving it from being demolished?

This international and interdisciplinary course addresses relict building structures as resources for a sustainable transformation of the construction sector. We will analyze these both from a technical side and as built heritage with social impact.

Firstly, we will lay out theoretical foundations regarding the calculated embodied energy certain buildings contain, how circular production can be introduced into building production and to what extent these structures shape the social networks and the heritage of industrial landscapes. In a second step, we will discuss these questions on site. A derelict granary in Oßmannstedt near Weimar is our case study. It was built in the Nazi era in order to provide for the warfare food supply and was used up until the 1970s. After 1990, the site fell derelict and was rediscovered only a few years ago. The granary itself is a massive concrete structure and as is a bulky typology for re-using. On the other hand, it can be seen as a carrier of local memory and a local landmark. As such it serves as an identity anchor for residents as well as towards visitors and passersby.

The course aims at impacting knowledge on both technical and social factors of preserving and developing the built environment. The students will learn key terms and methods of the embodied energy mensuration. Aspects of cultural processes and heritage negotiation are addressed as well as architectural approaches towards sensitive reconstruction of neglect buildings in rural areas.

Participating persons:
The course is organized by Jannik Noesken, research assistant at the Chair of spatial planning and spatial research, and Fridtjof Florian Dossin (Graduate School Identity and Heritage) together with colleagues from the Urban Heritage Department of the UACEG (Sofia, Bulgarien) with the framework of the Sping School 2024 in Weimar.

Guests:
Leon Dirksen and Mirko Haselroth (Institut für Graue Energie e.V.)

Contact:
Jannik Noeske (Department of spatial planning and spatial research): jannik.noeske[at]uni-weimar.de