A Filigree OPV Building Skin: Team coLLab

Part 14 / 15 of the series "Solar architecture at its best – Excellent projects from the Architecture Award Building Integrated Solar Technology 2022 introduced briefly"

SDE 21-22 Team coLLab, Hochschule für Technik Stuttgart (Germany)

The coLLab team from Stuttgart University of Applied Sciences chose a concept with an open-air area spanning several storeys, which they developed for a location on their own campus in Stuttgart. As a space-creating and design-defining element for both generating energy and solar shading, the students chose diamond-shaped OPV modules that are arranged in a filigree cable net on three sides of the building and above the “loggia”.

While the Novartis Pavilion in Basel uses modules with largely identical dimensions, the dimensions of the flat modules in the coLLab building are determined parametrically and, depending on
the building’s aspect and the expanse of the openings, are also used in different sizes and densities to achieve a good overall performance.

This produces a varied OPV cladding that, in both daylight and artificial light, creates an effective, multi-layered façade concept in combination with the timber structure and the climbing plants.

The project won the „Student’s Award“ of the “Architecture Award Building-Integrated Solar Technology 2022“.

Project partners
Architect: Hochschule für Technik Stuttgart
Owner: Bau-Fritz GmbH & Co. KG
OPV modules: ASCA

Get an Overview of the series "Solar architecture at its best – Excellent projects from the Architecture Award Building Integrated Solar Technology 2022 introduced briefly“

About the Architecture Award Building Integrated Solar Technology

The “Architecture Award Building-Integrated Solar Technology“ was started in the year 2000 by the Solarenergieförderverein Bayern (Bavarian Association for the Promotion of Solar Energy) and held since then for the 9th time. The award is established as an international competition concerning the interface between architecture and solar energy. The prize honors exemplary contributions of planning and designing building-integrated solar systems.

In the last edition of the competition the jury singled out 15 projects from 121 entries, which we want to present in a series. The jury was unanimous in its positive assessment that even with very different building tasks, and in different environments, these projects show that photovoltaic modules and solar thermal collectors can be successfully integrated with equal ambition in terms of design and technology.

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