Exploratory Teaching Space (ETS): "Thermal Model House"
The energy transition must start in the minds of the students: media-technical approach “Building climate, energy efficiency and indoor climate on a handy model scale”
Project duration:
10/2012 to 09/2013
Project funding:
DFG (as part of the Excellence Initiative)
Description:
In the scope of the tender “Studierende an der RWTH im Fokus der Exzellenz”, the Institute managed to attract ETS-funding. The project aimed to implement a new, creative media-based approach to the aspect of teaching, based on a vivid mobile testing-facility to demonstrate effects of building physics and building climate control on a model scale. The “Thermal Model House”, which was originally developed at the University of the Arts in Berlin, is suitable to reproduce complex interrelationships between solar radiation, heat transfer, heating, cooling, building management, control, and building use – in terms of energy-efficient building design. The new course provides students with an intuitive overview of the complex coherences regarding a building’s energy performance. The project relies on cooperation between the Faculty of Architecture and the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering.