OVERLOAD
Bachelor project WiSe 24/25, 9 ECTS

In an era fixated on Elon Musk’s lithium-ion panacea — sleek batteries forged from rare metals scraped from the ocean floor or extracted from distant, exploited territories — we’ve neglected a simple fact: everything is energy storage. A suspended volume of water, a coiled spring under tension, a mound of salt — all are reservoirs waiting to be tapped. The goddamn potato on your plate is as much a battery as the high-tech cells we covet.

Renewable energies are deemed unreliable because the wind doesn’t always blow, the sun doesn’t always shine — or perhaps it does, but we find ourselves on the wrong side of the planet or beneath a veil of clouds. As architects, we’ve abdicated our role, relegating energy to a peripheral concern addressed by engineers and technocrats. We slap solar panels onto facades, plant greenery on rooftops, and congratulate ourselves on sustainability, all the while peddling the latest high-tech gadgets to clients hungry for innovation. Energy must be reclaimed as the very bones of our buildings, the typological principle around which design revolves.

In reimagining buildings as batteries, we don’t just solve a technical dilemma; we initiate a paradigm shift. Energy becomes visible, palpable — no longer an abstract utility but an integral part of daily life. The challenge isn’t a scarcity of energy — one hour of sunlight reaching the planet provides enough energy for a whole year of human consumption.

This isn’t about adorning buildings with technological baubles; it’s about reimagining architecture as a conduit for energy. A house that ascends when energy is abundant, descending as it is consumed. Massive thermal cores that store and release heat, roofs that collect and redistribute water, façades that are both skin and infrastructure. Spaces transform in response to energy levels, making inhabitants acutely aware of consumption and fostering a shared responsibility.

PHASE ONE Prototyping – Our method is unapologetically empirical. Like pseudo-scientists, we begin by constructing 1:1 energy storage prototypes from low-tech materials—potatoes, soil, ice, water, salt. The first review takes the shape of a brunch, with each group powering a portion of the communal brunch. A tangible demonstration that energy need not be the exclusive domain of rare earths and complex chemistry.

PHASE TWO Loading – We will collectively imagine an apartment block in Munich where the storage of energy is not an appendage but the core, shaping its structure, typology, and the way inhabitants live both individually and collectively. The building becomes a living organism, its spaces mutable, its functions adaptive to the ebb and flow of energy.

Dates:
Kick-off Meeting: Tuesday 15.10.2024
Meetings: Tuesdays, Room TBC
Intermediate reviews: 05.11.2024 / 10.12.2024
Final presentation: 28.01.2025
Excursion: 16.11.2024 – 18.11.2024

Language:
english