Refurbishment Rommelmühle, Bietigheim-Bissingen, Germany

Refurbishment Rommelmühle

The project was the conversion of this historical monument, a former industrial mill, into an environmental service center with private living and business spaces. Monument conservation laws forced us to make compromises as to the implementation of the insulation, solar protection and use of thermal storage capacity we had envisioned in our low-energy building plan. The location of the former mill further complicated the renovation as it is situated in floodplains close to river Enz.
The overall energy concept consists of three parts: ventilation, heating / cooling and lighting. All measures contribute to the goal of reducing the total energy consumption - not as usual the heating energy consumption - and to keeping it as low as possible per square meter and year:
-Rear ventilation and heating of the shading devices, which was placed inside for monument conservation reasons
-Underground duct made of spun concrete pipes for conditioning supply air
-North glazed building as supply air distributor
-Natural ventilation and cooling
-Natural lighting via existing windows with light-deflecting shading devices
-Limiting internal heating loads through guidelines for artificial lighting
-Riverwater for energy supply