Building Biology Magazine

Climate-neutral for 40 years: In Verden, Germany, a multifamily house was built using wood and straw. Its impressive material and energy concept includes a building enclosure with high-performance thermal insulation made of straw, passive and active solar energy systems, and large electricity and solar heat storage systems. According to a comprehensive life cycle assessment, the building will be climate neutral for the first 40 years, after which it will continue to emit minimal amounts of carbon dioxide.

Advice from sleep expert Prof. Dr. med. h. c. Günther W. Amann-Jennson. His most important principle: Don't worry about sleep! Sleep regulates itself if the basic conditions are right.

Prof. Dr. Tsuneo Ishikawa studied architecture in Munich and elsewhere. As vice president of the Maebashi Institute of Technology, he has been teaching building biology there since 2001. In 2005 he founded the IBN partner institute "Building Biology Institute of Japan BIJ," which offers the Japanese version of the Building Biology Course IBN, a building biology magazine, and seminars and conferences. The collaboration with the BIJ is very exciting, as the Japanese culture and building methods offer different perspectives and unknown knowledge. In this interview, he talks about his background and what inspires him about building biology.

Interview with architect Winfried Schneider, director of the Institut für Baubiologie + Nachhaltigkeit IBN

A handful of young people moved to the Altmark region of Saxony-Anhalt, Germany, to build a village out of wood, clay, and straw. They envisioned it to be a "self-sufficient, environmentally friendly community." Today, 30 years later, 155 people live in the Sieben Linden Ecovillage. What is the secret of its success?

Many people struggle at first with the meaning of statements like “the average CO₂ consumption is about 9 tons per capita per year” or “the price of CO₂ is 55 euros per ton” or “one ton of CO₂ is needed to produce about 3 cubic meters of reinforced concrete”. We provide clarification.

What is the right insulation strategy? How thick should or may the insulation be, and when is exterior insulation the right choice and when is interior? There is a tremendous amount of uncertainty about appropriate, error-free, code-compliant insulation strategies. However, common sense is the best way to understand applied building physics.

In this 3-day hands-on workshop "Building Biology Interior Decoration IBN," 20 participants learned how to creatively use the trendy materials clay, lime, and self-made natural paints.

The adverse effects of low frequency noise in residential areas, such as that emitted by air source heat pumps, have increased significantly in recent years. However, little is known about the exact causes of this increase in subjective symptoms. A research project of the German Environment Agency (UBA) will now shed light on this.

In August 2024, nine years after the last edition, a new Standard of Building Biology Testing Methods (SBM) was completed, largely without its original initiator and developer Wolfgang Maes. The Building Biology Evaluation Guidelines for Sleeping Areas underwent a thorough revision, and new tools for assessing additional indoor risk factors were introduced for some Standard points. Furthermore, we revised the Testing Conditions, Instructions and Additions and Guiding Principles that supplement the Building Biology Standard and Guideline Values.