Sun Ship Freiburg, German Solar Settlement, Eco Building Project Photos, Design Images

Sun Ship, Freiburg, Germany

Sonnenschiff, Freiburg im Breisgau, Baden-Württemberg, Germany, Europe: Solar Settlement Architecture

22 Jun 2017

Sun Ship, Freiburg im Breisgau

Sun Ship Photos

SoSie+SoSchiff, Freiburg im Breisgau:

photograph by Andrewglaser at English Wikipedia [CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0) or GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html)], via Wikimedia Commons

Sun Ship, Freiburg im Breisgau homes:

photo by By Mangan02 (Own work) [CC BY-SA 4.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

27 Sep 2010

Sonnenschiff Freiburg

Sun Ship, Freiburg

With completion of the Solar Settlement at the Sun Ship development (mixed-use) in southern Germany we carry images of the housing element and general text about the whole development:

“Solar Architecture is not about fashion – it is about survival”
Lord Norman Foster

“The sun doesn‘t send us a bill – the energy revolution is possible.”
What German journalist and activist Franz Alt thinks of as possible is actually materialized in the Sun Ship.

With sixty individually designed PlusEnergy homes, the Freiburg Solar Settlement is Europe‘s most modern residential development project. PlusEnergy building also gains a new dimension from the Sun Ship, which fits optimally with the concept of the Solar Settlement.

In technical terms, we have come up with altogether new standards. For a commercial and office building, it had never before been achieved to generate maximum solar energy and at the same time reduce the consumption to a minimum. The result: energy is not a cost factor, rather it produces ancillary income.

For many that seems too utopian. But just the contrary, we have remained realistic: because such a project can only be carried out, when it fits economically.

We feel committed to the highest ecological, urban planning, and aesthetic standards. That enriches the value of the real estate and the attraction for our renters.

The Sun Ship is now occupied by a selected ensemble of commercial and service companies. These firms together share the belief in sustainability and thus profit from the image and infrastructure, team spirit and synergy of the complex.

The penthouses offer exclusive residence options above the roofs of the young and pulsating Vauban quarter, only a few minutes from Freiburg‘s center. Embedded in an artistically designed roof garden landscape, you are able to see out from the Black Forest across the Rhine valley until the Vosges.

The 1st Sun Ship Fund covers the expansive commercial spaces of the building. After four successful Freiburg Solar Funds, this is again the opportunity for investments, return-rate security, and ecologic ethics to be combined. With an investment in trend-setting , secure solar real estate, the individual benefit will be reflected as a common benefit for the environment and generations to come.

The Sun Ship earned a variety of prizes and awards for its architecture, aesthetics and economic innovation. We are proud to present to you in pictures and words this built piece of the future, and we hope to wake your interest for this project and our offer.

Yours, Rolf Disch
CEO and Architect of the Solar Settlement

A dream came true: the Schlierberg Solar Settlement in Freiburg‘s south. Completed in 2004, today it is visited and occupied by the residents of the solar terrace townhomes and penthouses, by passers-by and visitors, and by the employees and customers of the firms of the impressionable commercial complex: the Sun Ship.

From the roof gardens on the Sun Ship you can see children playing in the traffic-less, welcoming streets between the color-happy homes and gardens. The elegant blue roofs of the community shimmer in the sun. They are made completely of solar panels. They turn every home into a power plant.

The Beginnings
The sun delivers 20,000 times more energy to Earth than humans need. Shouldn‘t we use an opportunity like that? For thirty years the solar architect Rolf Disch has again and again given new, original and improved answers: individual single family homes, smaller terraced townhouse ensembles oriented to the sun, and also experimental solar automobiles were all created over time.

Photovoltaic and housing technology were further developed, and then the time for a flagship project had arrived: the Heliotrope, the world famous, cylindrical residence of the architect, which physically rotates with the pattern of the sun. All these experiences should now go towards an entire residential, commercial, and even urban planning project…

Today

The Solar Settlement is the answer to three questions. What is ecologically, solar- and energy technically feasible? What is wished for aesthetically and urban planningwise?

And finally, what is economically realistic? These questions were answered, and the innovative power of the design idea was quickly recognized. The community was built as a project of the EXPO 2000.

The Solar Settlement is an ensemble of multistory and a commercial building, the Sun Ship, with retail, clinical practices, and office space, which fulfills various functions for the solar estate as well as the equally newly built “Vauban” quarter. Sixty solar residences divided upon 11,000 m2 – including nine penthouses – with together 7,850 m2 floor space. The Sun Ship, flanking the west edge of the property, seals the community in with 1,200 m2 of commercial space and 3,600 m2 of office space.

11,000 Square Meters of the Future
Even in respect to the financing and investment options, new surfaces were scratched with the Solar Settlement project. There are solutions, which are ethical and ecological, and which are economically profitable at the same time. We want to demonstrate what is possible and necessary for our future, from the Sun Ship, a PlusEnergy commercial building.

From the roof gardens of the Sun Ship you see, blue and beautiful, the shimmering solar roofs of the Solar Settlement. Every house a solar power plant, that generates more energy than it consumes. And you can see kids playing on the pathways between the bright colored homes and gardens.

The Sun Ship in Freiburg / Germany – an extraordinary building which offers you extraordinary opportunities:

Functionally
… the Sun Ship meets with the highest standards and the requirements of a variegated economic utilization. As a services centre for the internationally renowned Solar Settlement in Freiburg, it combines commerce and gastronomy on the ground floor, attractive office and medical practices space on the upper floors and exclusive penthouses, embedded into a beautiful roof garden landscape. This synthesis is already alive, it is being realised and implemented by an ensemble of sustainably managed companies and institutions. With the 2nd Sun Ship Real Estate Fund (2. Sonnenschiff-Fonds), you can profit from those synergy effects.

Ecologically
The Sun Ship is a quantum leap in building technology. The Plusenergy House is our answer to the ecological challenges of the 21st century – a building that generates more energy than it consumes. The 2nd Sun Ship Real Estate Fund (2. Sonnenschiff-Fonds) is an investment into the future for yet another reason: Compared to conventional property, a solid and sustainable way of building with natural, high quality building materials result in a crucial plus in terms also of value stability. The fund building thus becomes even more exclusive – and your investment helps to keep the world a good place to live in even for your grandchildren.

Aesthetically
The Sun Ship is a sign and signal which is perceived far beyond the borders of Germany and even of Europe. Striking and distinctive, yet elegant in its outline with its charmingly cheerful layout of colours, the very façade gives a promise – a promise kept by the layout inside – to meaningful work, to thoughtful consumption, to exclusive living in rooms that are flooded with the light of the sun. You acquire shares of a truly unique building.

Economically
You profit from our great wealth of experience with five previous Freiburg Solar Funds. The building, dynamically striving forward, incorporates the idea of a ship – at good speed towards a solar future.

Sun Ship, Freiburg images / information from Rolf Disch SolarArchitecture, Freiburg

Further information: www.rolfdisch.de

Location: Sonnenschiff, Freiburg im Breisgau, Baden-Württemberg, Germany