immo!nvest – Die Plattform für Standorte und Immobilien

Tag: München

  • BAU celebrates a successful comeback

    BAU celebrates a successful comeback

    “BAU has once again proven that it is and remains the most important stage for innovations and premieres in the building sector. Despite the four-year forced break, more companies presented themselves in Munich than ever before. This underpins the very positive response to trade fairs and, in particular, to leading world trade fairs, as was already evident in 2022,” say the two heads of the trade fair Reinhard Pfeiffer and Stefan Rummel, summing up BAU 2023.

    Dieter Schäfer, Chairman of the BAU Exhibitors’ Advisory Council, agrees that BAU 2023 was a great success: “We did everything right by moving BAU 2023 to April. Fully occupied halls and a high proportion of international visitors underline the relevance of BAU. It was all the more important that the fair took place again after more than four years. In future, BAU will return to its usual January date.”

    In addition to the Federal Minister of Construction, Klara Geywitz, Bavaria’s Minister of Economic Affairs, Hubert Aiwanger, also took a look at the innovations and trends in the building industry at BAU: “The largest construction and architects’ trade fair is a successful networking platform for planners and building tradesmen. We need the very innovations presented there on how to reconcile climate protection and the challenges such as affordable building and housing. The fair stands for progress, growth and competitiveness and sets the course for the future in building and urban planning.”

    For Felix Pakleppa, General Manager of the Central Association of the German Building Trade (Zentralverband des Deutschen Baugewerbes), BAU sends a trend-setting signal to the building industry after the long forced break: “With the key themes of digital transformation, the future of living, resources and recycling, as well as modular building, the biggest challenges and trends of the moment have been perfectly mapped out. This year, BAU thus once again offers a great platform for creating future perspectives.”

    Katharina Metzger, President of the Federal Association of the German Building Materials Trade, also considers the return after more than four years a success: “We are more than satisfied with BAU 2023, because such an important sector cannot afford to be without a trade fair platform for six years. Even if important manufacturers for our specialist dealers with their craftsmen were unfortunately not on board this time, we hope that we can count on the old presence of suppliers again in January in 2025.”

    Andrea Gebhard, President of the Federal Chamber of Architects, emphasised the important significance of personal exchange: “BAU 2023 reflects the current issues of the building industry. It is the ideal meeting place for architects and planners to discuss both innovative materials of the future and social issues such as affordable housing.”

    BAU project manager Matthias Strauss is already looking forward to the upcoming events in the BAU Network: “After the successful BAU, the entire team is already very much looking forward to the digitalBAU conference & networking premiere next July as well as the next digitalBAU in February 2024.”

    Internationality of visitors reaches record level
    At the top of the international visitor ranking of BAU are Austria, Italy and Switzerland. Thanks to strong growth, Poland and Turkey take fourth and fifth place. Overall, the international share is almost 80,000 visitors. This corresponds to 40 percent of the total number of visitors and marks a record figure. In percentage terms, the international share is thus still a good deal higher than the previous record result from 2019 (37 per cent).

    The number of Chinese visitors is particularly noteworthy. With 1,600 people, China is one of the top 10 visitor countries at BAU 2023, a positive surprise after the Corona restrictions on travel from China to foreign countries were only recently relaxed.

  • Hybrid buildings made of wood have a future

    Hybrid buildings made of wood have a future

    Mr. Wappner, wood is one of the oldest building materials in Central Europe. We all know stilt houses or medieval half-timbered houses. Nowadays, however, wooden buildings are rare. Since when has wood been forgotten, especially in the urban context of construction, and why?

    It is correct: the building material wood was used much more frequently for the construction of buildings in the past. This is mainly due to the fact that wood has always been available in sufficient quantities in our Central European regions – also because the climatic conditions in Germany and many other European countries favor rapid regrowth. Due to the enormous effort in building in the past centuries, craftsmen over many generations have developed excellent knowledge and skills to deal with this material in an increasingly creative, skilful and efficient way. We still benefit from that today.

    Especially in the urban context, however, wood fell into oblivion in the course of industrialization from the middle of the 19th century or received industrially manufactured competition as a building material. Machine-made building materials such as brick or concrete were increasingly preferred. Because they could be produced cheaper, faster and in large quantities. In addition, many of our cities used to be built entirely of wood and have burned down several times in their history. Wood was therefore anchored in people’s minds as a source of danger. Structural fire protection in connection with dense inner-city development has always been an issue in urban planning. In contrast, in the industrial age, more fire-resistant building materials provided better safety evidence and thus more trust among people. This is one of the reasons why industrial building materials have increasingly replaced wood, especially in European urban planning.

    How do you explain the current boom in timber construction?

    The timber construction boom was clearly triggered by the growing ecological awareness in society. Wood is so attractive as a building material because we work with a renewable, resource-saving and circular raw material. With wood we can store CO 2 in buildings and thus counteract the energy-intensive production of other building materials and their use with a sustainable and environmentally friendly statement. The CO 2 balance of wood is unbeatably good compared to other building materials. But wood is not infinitely available, so we have to use the resources wisely.

    The current boom is also made possible by extensive research in recent years – especially in regions such as Vorarlberg, Graubünden or South Tyrol, but also in the Black Forest and the Allgäu. Today we have a great deal of knowledge about the material, which is paired with the centuries-old handed-down craftsmanship experience. There are now excellent opportunities to optimally test the load-bearing capacity and fire resistance of wood in long-term tests.

    Digitization plays another major role. CNC technology and other technical revolutions were a real quantum leap here. Thanks to the technically based use of machines, wood can now be processed and pre-produced down to the millimeter. This then happens directly in a workshop, where the components can be prefabricated in the dry and some can already be assembled. This high degree of prefabrication of modular wooden elements saves a lot of time and money.

    As a result of all these developments, wood as a building material has become very exciting again in recent years – and trust in the material has grown enormously. In addition, wood also has many other advantages that people appreciate: it smells good, looks familiar and feels pleasant.