Christoph Hesse Architects

One day a client walked into our office and said: „I would like to have a round house that changes the total energy consumption of my village.“ Well, a round house is rather unusual, but that‘s exactly why we accepted the challenge. The round shape was chosen because of its energy-efficient surface/ volume proportion. The house consists of two levels, on the ground floor there is the administration of the client‘s biogas plant and on the loft-like upper floor are the living rooms of the family.
The model function of Villa F has inspired the whole village to build a local heating network by themselves and to connect to the biogas plant. The energy costs dropped by more than half, the CO2 emissions by 100 percent. Only a short time later, the adjacent village decided to join the network, in order to become independent of the global energy market as well.