ABOUT US
DGJ Architektur has been planning and realizing buildings with high architectural, structural, and energy standards since 1999. For us, the design of sustainable buildings is primarily a creative challenge. Sustainable architecture can only be developed through a holistic understanding of design, construction, and technology.
Several of our projects have been awarded national and international prizes and are model projects of the federal research initiative ZukunftBau (BBSR):
- dgj223 Collegium Academicum, a student housing project with 176 residential units, is a model project for BBSR’s Variowohnungen, a project of the IBA Heidelberg, and is supported by the Holz Innovativ program of the state of Baden-Württemberg
- dgj228 Residential Building Gemeinsam Suffizient Leben in Frankfurt am Main
- dgj167 Plus-Energy House, Boarding School Geisenheim, is a model project of the Effizienzhaus Plus program.
DGJ Architektur is also deeply involved in the modernization and energy retrofitting of existing buildings. Among other projects, our passive house renovation and extension of an inner-city residential building in Bonn received an award from the Wüstenrot Foundation. Currently, the transformation of a former brewery tower in Bitburg into an office high-rise is under construction.
RESEARCH
Since its inception, DGJ Architektur has conducted basic research and applied construction research alongside practical projects. The partners of DGJ have been researching and teaching at various universities, colleges, and within the DGJ Architektur office since 2002. As a result, numerous interdisciplinary research projects in the fields of housing research and architectural sociology have been initiated, led, and successfully completed at DGJ. A series of publications have emerged from these projects, supported by national and European funding bodies. These research projects are carried out either internally within the office or in collaboration with external partners. The topics range from energy concepts and energy balances, to life cycle assessments and sustainability evaluations, to basic research on communal living practices and methods for integrating sustainability aspects into design and planning.
Currently, DGJ Architektur is working on four research projects:
- A study on the changing functions of housing in light of the waning Corona pandemic, one of the first research projects to address the architectural sociological impacts and trends of this major societal shift
- With support from the Deutsche Bundesstiftung Umwelt (German Federal Foundation for the Environment), we are developing and researching the technical aspects of timber construction systems with form- and force-locking connections
- On behalf of the Federal Institute for Research on Building, Urban Affairs, and Spatial Development (BBSR), we are conducting architectural sociology research in collaboration with sociologists from Humboldt University in Berlin, focusing on the model projects in the Variowohnungen program
- The BBSR also supports our research on res034 Low-Tech-Green facade greening systems.