ABSTRACT
Rolf Disch, an architect with long-standing experience in low-energy architecture, has driven the project through a 10-year period that started with the planning of the first buildings in 1997 and resulted in construction and completion of 50 single-family homes and a commercial building complex between 2000 and 2006. He brought a new focus to the low-energy house community, as his objective with these projects was less on record-low energy consumption but on finding the right trade-off between building cost and energy efficiency. Rolf Disch's Solarsiedlung am Schlierberg can eventually be assessed as a successful case of sustainable consumption and production. As a major piece of land became available in Freiburg, Germany, after the withdrawal of the French army in 1992, Disch started working on an idea of a large-scale solar housing estate. However, the initiator of the project has turned into a social entrepreneur, addressing all the financial, regulatory and marketing hurdles on the way.
