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1st Prize Jennifer Keßler

 1st Prize

Until the End

Author: Jennifer Keßler

Supervisor: Dirk E. Hebel, Riklef Rambow
Karlsruhe Institute of Technology



Author's description 

"The project „Until the End“, tackles the topic of End-of-Life-Architecture in two different ways. The first level of meaning concerns the end of life of buildings. The building sector is responsible for 50% of the primary energy consumption, 40% of CO2 and other greenhouse gas emissions and uses 50% of the raw material, while generating 36% of the waste worldwide. In order to reach the 1,5-degree goal of the Paris agreement, the building sector needs to change from a linear process to a circular economy. The circular renovation of existing building stock and its embodied carbon will play a major role in the fight for climate change from an architectural point of view.

The second level of meaning concerns the end of life of people. Although Germany is an aging country with multilocal family constellations, the palliative and end of life care chain is inadequate and varying from state to state. More modern developments in hospice care, such as day hospices are rare, and hospices pushed to the outskirts of the city.

My thesis marries these two topics in a circular renovation and transformation of an existing building into a hospice in the heart of Karlsruhe, Germany."



Jury statement

"The jury praises the sensitive approach to the difficult topic of a hospice. The idea of converting an existing inner-city building is also perceived as realistic and in line with current requirements for resource conservation and re-use. Green and outdoor areas are intelligently integrated into the existing building, thus achieving a significant increase in spatial quality."


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