LOCAL+ ● Aachen, Germany

“LOCAL+ is more than just living – we bring movement into your life!” this is the vision of the team from the University of Applied Sciences Aachen. Under the direction of Prof. Dipl.-Ing. Wollenweber, LOCAL+ started the competition with more than 20 architecture students. They are accompanied by research assistants, professors, fellow students from other faculties and partners, for example, the Solar Institute Jülich.

LOCAL+ has set the goal to make the Mirke District a more attractive neighbourhood. This goal is being pursued by following two guidelines: promote social interaction and make a positive contribution to the planet. To promote social interaction, the team has developed a housing concept for (temporarily) single people who want to be part of a community. 

The entire house serves as one large housing community, while the basement, ground floor and garden are communal areas. Here, the residents can have breakfast together, watch a movie or grow their own vegetables. On floors one to four, you can find small shared apartments with a unique design: next to the standard equipment such as a barrier-free bathroom and a pantry kitchen, the CUBEs were invented to replace traditional rooms. The room units are a central design aspect and anarchitectural innovation because they are fully movable.

The CUBEs create spatial diversity by allowing adaptable zoning of rooms but primarily serve as a personal retreat and work space. Their minimised size puts interaction, communication andcommunal living in the spotlight and reduces the living space used per person. In total, up to three CUBEs fit on each living floor. 

In addition to social interaction, LOCAL+ aims to create a building that innovatively and intelligently integrates new energy and sustainability concepts. With a clever combination of different concepts for generating, storing and using energy, two-thirds of the building's energy needs can be covered. 

Furthermore, the circularity of the house is improved by an efficient and sufficient choice of materials and a deconstructable construction. In this way, the goal of reducing the CO2 footprint, as well as planning and building in a way that conserves resources, can be achieved.