Walking through walls

Today "Halle H" (a huge hanger-like space) in the AZB Hamburg rang with the sounds of the scratching of pens on paper and the clicking open and closed of wooden rules.

Twenty-four final year bricklaying students (above, image courtesy of Marco Bleck) were sketching six of the reconstructions housed in the building and then measuring the 'before' and 'after' refurbishment dimensions.

Halle H looks like a cross between an adventure playground (albeit with a roof, a tile floor and plaster walls) and the premises of the builder and seller of upmarket wendy houses.

It contains examples of sections of seven buildings all in the ratio 1:1 and all built by AZB Hamburg students. The collection includes five houses - each typical of the buildings to be found in Hamburg. There is one each from 1900, 1950s-60s, 1970-80s, plus two modern buildings - one built to Passivhousestandard and the other a timber frame low energy home, and two commercial properties - one from the 1900s and the other of the 'nothing but glass' sort which are increasingly (and depressingly) so prevalent in my part of London (north Southwark) and The City. The glass and metal cube belongs to the Zentrum für zukunftsorientiertes Bauen (the Centre for Future Oriented Construction).

The five 'historic' models show the materials, how much space is required to renovate exisiting properties to meet the latest standards of insulation set by the German goverment, and, no less critically, how to avoid thermal bridges.

I gatecrashed the third year students' tuition session with the retrospective permission of teachers Herr Hoffmann and Herr Palm from the Staatliche Gewerbeschule Bautechnik G19 (Hamburg Vocational School for Building Crafts G19) to experience how the exhibits could be used as a teaching resource.

Herr Palm explained that before the existence of Halle H (it was officially opened in summer 2007) students had to use traditional teaching materials, ie textbooks, to learn the theory of refurbishing the city's buildings.

Once they realised what was required of them the students seemed to enjoy the task. You can walk into the exhibits and climb stairs, enjoy the 'view' from the second storey, the roof terrace or the balcony. Perhaps the architects behind the choice of room were fans of Big Brother as one of the demonstration buildings comprises a bathroom, another the toilet cubicle!

Herr Hoffmann explained that he has long been concerned about the environment and when he built his home he aimed for sustainability and to reduce his carbon footprint. With a smile he added that as that was in the 1970s there were things he would do differently if he were building it now as knowledge and materials have moved on.

He explained that although it was unlikely the students would be able to influence a developer or the house owner to build a passive or low energy house, it was important to provide them with the knowledge of why such designs are needed. This is because when qualified they might find themselves in a situation where they are able to make suggestions but at the very least they would be equipped with the techniques when called on to build such a design.