Vauban, 30/01/2012:

On Monday morning we got a tour of Vauban, a neighborhood of Freiburg that focuses on sustainability. Many of the buildings were originally French army barracks after World War II. After the French left, they were converted to apartments but with a sustainable spin. Many of the buildings are passive houses (where they use no more electricity than they produce via solar panels, etc) and solar panels are everywhere. The neighborhood also discourages the use of cars by having many houses without built in parking and ample public transportation.

Originally, Vauban was supposed to be for low-income individuals and students, but the project has been highly successful, pushing house prizes upwards. I take this as a sign that there is a strong demand for sustainable homes, at least in Germany.

These photographs show a passive house and also the famous rotating solar powered house that tracks the sun to generate the most energy from its solar panels and warm the house via sunlight.

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