Heliotrop, Energy-plus house in Freiburg, Germany.
The Heliotrop is an 18-metre-high timber house in Freiburg im Breisgau, built from prefabricated modules with glazing on one side only. A central motor of 120 watts turns the whole structure to face the sun, using about 20 kWh a year. Inside there are no floors: a 14-metre wooden tube holds a narrow spiral staircase and a chain of rooms winding upward around a bundle of pipes and cables.
The building was completed in 1994 as the first energy-plus home in the world. Architect Rolf Disch designed it as his own residence, proving that such technologies could work in real-world living conditions.
Rolf Disch and his wife Hanna Lehmann lived in the house and gave guided tours to around 20,000 people over 25 years, about 60 a month. The name comes from heliotropism, the tendency to turn toward the sun, which the rotating timber column performs.
Visits to the house require advance booking. The address at Ziegelweg 28 is accessible by public transportation from Freiburg main station.
The 18-metre timber tower has no floors: rooms spiral around a central 14-metre wooden tube holding a narrow spiral staircase and a bundle of pipes and cables. Drinking water runs through repurposed milking hoses, which flex as the house turns, a rotation that never exceeds 400 degrees.
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