Franz Un­ter­stel­ler MdL

Min­is­ter for the En­vir­on­ment, Cli­mate and En­ergy of the State of Baden-Württem­berg

Franz Un­ter­steller was born in En­sheim, Saar­land. He gradu­ated in 1977 from the com­mer­cial high school in Saar­brück­en. In 1978, he re­ceived his de­gree in Land­scape Plan­ning from the then Uni­versity of Ap­plied Sci­en­ces Nürtin­gen, which he suc­cess­fully com­pleted after study­ing in Colom­bia in 1982 as a gradu­ate en­gin­eer. As a lec­turer, he re­turned to the Uni­versity of Ap­plied Sci­en­ces in 1998/99.

As early as 1981, Franz Un­ter­steller worked at the Öko-In­sti­tut e.V. in Freiburg, from 2002 to 2011 he was a mem­ber of the Ex­ec­ut­ive Board. He earned his polit­ic­al spurs between 1983 and 2006 as an en­vir­on­ment­al and en­ergy policy ad­viser to the Green Group in the Baden-Württem­berg state par­lia­ment. Since 2006 he is a mem­ber of the state par­lia­ment of Baden-Württem­berg. From 2006 to 2011 he was Deputy Lead­er of the Green par­lia­ment­ary group. In ad­di­tion, since 2008 he has been a mem­ber of the board of the as­so­ci­ation "Friends and sup­port­ers of Wil­helma e.V.".

In May 2011 he was ap­poin­ted Min­is­ter of the En­vir­on­ment, Cli­mate and En­ergy of the state of Baden-Württem­berg.

Prof. Dr. rer. nat. Eckart Würzner

Ma­yor of the City of Hei­del­berg

Eck­art Würzn­er is a nat­ive of Gos­lar. He stud­ied geo­graphy in Man­nheim and Heidel­berg as well as a minor in law.

Würzn­er joined the pro­fes­sion­al life as en­vir­on­ment­al con­sult­ant for the ad­min­is­trat­ive cen­ter of the city of Heidel­berg. He was co-founder and man­aging dir­ect­or of the re­gion­al en­ergy agency. He also foun­ded the Work­ing Group En­vir­on­ment at the Ger­man As­so­ci­ation of Cit­ies.

In Brazil, he sup­por­ted the cit­ies of Rio de Janeiro and Cur­it­iba on be­half of the Carl Duis­berg So­ci­ety in set­ting up an en­vir­on­ment­al and en­ergy man­age­ment sys­tem. In Saudi Ar­a­bia, he car­ried out train­ing for the de­vel­op­ment of en­vir­on­ment­al man­age­ment sys­tems in sev­er­al cit­ies on be­half of the Fed­er­al For­eign Of­fice. In 1996, dur­ing a re­search stay in the US, he did a study on cli­mate change strategies in Amer­ic­an cit­ies for the Cen­ter for Clean Air Policy in Wash­ing­ton.

Würzn­er was the May­or of the City of Heidel­berg for En­vir­on­ment for six years be­fore be­ing elec­ted Lord May­or in 2006. 2014 was the re-elec­tion. In ad­di­tion, Würzn­er is act­ive in nu­mer­ous com­mit­tees, in­clud­ing be­ing Pres­id­ent of the European Net­work En­ergy Cit­ies and mem­ber of the Ad­vis­ory Coun­cil of the May­ors "European Cov­en­ant of May­ors Board".

As a lec­turer for many years, Würzn­er has been teach­ing at the SRH Uni­versity of Ap­plied Sci­en­ces Heidel­berg since 2009 in the field of en­ergy and en­vir­on­ment­al man­age­ment, sus­tain­ab­il­ity and pro­ject man­age­ment

Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Feist
Founder of the Pass­ive House In­sti­tu­te

Dr Wolfgang Feist, a phys­i­cist by train­ing, is the founder and dir­ect­or of the Pass­ive House In­sti­tu­te (PHI), an in­de­pend­ent re­search in­sti­tu­te foun­ded in 1996 in Darm­stadt, Ger­many. He has ded­ic­ated his ca­reer to the de­vel­op­ment of solu­tions for en­ergy ef­fi­cient build­ings and in­creas­ing in­dustry ca­pa­city world­wide through the Pass­ive House Stand­ard. Hav­ing re­searched at Tübin­gen, Kas­sel and Lund Uni­versity since 1973, Feist was re­spons­ible for the plan­ning and con­struc­tion of the first Pass­ive House build­ing in 1991, which al­most 25 years later still per­forms as ini­tially de­signed. Since 2008, Dr Feist is also a pro­fess­or of build­ing phys­ics at the Uni­versity of Inns­bruck, where he has worked with­in the De­part­ment of En­ergy Ef­fi­cient Con­struc­tion since 2008 to spur de­vel­op­ment in the re­gion of Tyr­ol, Aus­tria.

Among his many re­cog­ni­tions, Dr. Feist has been awar­ded the fol­low­ing:
2001 Na­tion­al Ger­man En­vir­on­ment­al Award, Deutsche Bundess­tif­tung Um­welt (DBU)
2003 In­ter­na­tion­al En­vir­on­ment­al Award of the City of Gothen­borg
2013 Hon­or­ary Fel­low­ship Award, Roy­al In­sti­tu­te of Brit­ish Ar­chi­tects (RIBA)
2014 Sus­tain­able Build­ing Award, Uni­versity City of Lund, Sweden

Mi­cha­el Braum
Is a city plan­ner and uni­versity pro­fess­or for urb­an plan­ning and design at the Gottfried Wil­helm Leib­n­iz Uni­versity Han­nov­er as well as man­aging dir­ect­or of the IBA Heidel­berg

Braum stud­ied urb­an plan­ning at the Tech­nic­al Uni­versity of Ber­lin. After work­ing for the Free Plan­ning Group Ber­lin, he re­turned in 1984 as a re­search as­sist­ant to the De­part­ment of Urb­an Plan­ning and Set­tle­ment at the Tech­nic­al Uni­versity of Ber­lin.
In 1988 he be­came a part­ner of the Free Plan­ning Group Ber­lin. In 1996 he co-foun­ded the of­fice con­radi, braum & bock­horst stadtplaner and ar­chitek­ten. In 2006 he foun­ded the of­fice mbup_stadtar­chitek­tur­land­schaft. His of­fices are primar­ily con­cerned with con­cep­tu­al work at the in­ter­face between urb­an plan­ning, ar­chi­tec­ture and land­scape. In 1998, he was ap­poin­ted Pro­fess­or of Urb­an Design and De­vel­op­ment at Leib­n­iz Uni­versität Han­nov­er. He holds the chair un­til today. From 2008 to 2013, he was Chair­man of the Ex­ec­ut­ive Board of the Fed­er­al Found­a­tion for Build­ing Cul­ture, which he set up.
Since June 2013 he is Man­aging Dir­ect­or of the In­ter­na­tion­al Build­ing Ex­hib­i­tion Heidel­berg. Since 2016, Mi­chael Braum has been a mem­ber of the Con­ven­tion and the Ad­vis­ory Coun­cil of the Bundess­tif­tung Baukul­tur, a mem­ber of the large con­ven­tion of the Schader­stif­tung since 2017.
Braum is a mem­ber of the As­so­ci­ation of Ger­man Ar­chi­tects, the Ger­man Academy for Urb­an Plan­ning and Re­gion­al Plan­ning (DASL) and the As­so­ci­ation for Urb­an, Re­gion­al and State Plan­ning. He is the au­thor and pub­lish­er of nu­mer­ous pub­lic­a­tions on top­ics of urb­an plan­ning and build­ing cul­ture.

Mi­cha­el Schu­ma­cher
Is a pro­fess­or of design and en­gin­eer­ing at the fac­ulty of Ar­chi­tec­ture and land­scape, Leib­n­iz Uni­versität Han­nov­er and co-founder of schneider + schu­mach­er

Prof. Mi­chael Schu­mach­er, born in Krefeld in 1957, stud­ied ar­chi­tec­ture at the Uni­versity of Kais­er­slaut­ern. In 1986 he com­pleted post­gradu­ate stud­ies at the Städelschule in Frank­furt on Main with Peter Cook. 1987 he was a freel­an­cer in the of­fice of Sir Nor­man Foster in Lon­don. Next year ,1988, fol­lowed the found­ing of schneider + schu­mach­er. Prof. Mi­chael Schu­mach­er took on the vis­it­ing pro­fess­or­ship at the Städelschule in Frank­furt for two years start­ing in 1999. Between 2004 and 2009 he ac­ted as chair­man of the As­so­ci­ation of Ger­man Ar­chi­tects (BDA) Hesse. Since 2007 he has been Pro­fess­or of Design and Con­struct­ing at the Fac­ulty of Ar­chi­tec­ture and Land­scape, Leib­n­iz Uni­versität Han­nov­er.

Achim Sö­ding
is a man­aging part­ner at AUER WEBER, Stut­tgart

Achim Söd­ing, Dipl.-Ing. Ar­chi­tect BDA, born in Han­nov­er in 1961, stud­ied ar­chi­tec­ture at the Uni­versity of Han­nov­er and at the Vi­enna Uni­versity of Tech­no­logy. In 1987 he won Rudolf Lod­der's "Mani­festo for a Dif­fer­ent Ar­chi­tec­ture" award. After gradu­at­ing from the Uni­versity of Han­nov­er, he worked in the Wilke of­fice in Han­over. Achim Söd­ing has been with Auer Weber in Stut­tgart since 1989 and 2006 he took over the role of the man­aging part­ner. Between 2001 and 2002 he had been  teach­ing in Build­ing Con­struc­tion and Design at the Uni­versity of Ap­plied Sci­en­ces Mag­de­burg / Stend­al FH.

Jörg Us­ing­er
Is a part­ner of  Beh­nisch Ar­chi­tek­ten, Stut­tgart

Jörg Us­ing­er, born in 1966 in Frank­furt/Main, stud­ied ar­chi­tec­ture at the RWTH Aachen and the former Tech­nic­al Uni­versity of Karls­ruhe, Ger­many. After ob­tain­ing his dip­loma in 1993, he joined Behnisch & Part­ner, the prac­tice of Günter Behnisch, where he was re­spons­ible for a num­ber of award win­ning-com­pet­i­tions and pro­jects. Since 2005, Jörg worked with Behnisch Ar­chitek­ten and gained ex­tens­ive ex­per­i­en­ce in nu­mer­ous pro­jects, and was, amongst oth­ers, pro­ject lead­er of the Thermal Spa Römerbad in Bad Kleinkirch­heim/Aus­tria, the In­sti­tu­te for Tech­nic­al Phys­ics at the KIT and the Dorotheen Quart­i­er in Stut­tgart. Between 2003 and 2012 he was a vis­it­ing lec­turer at the In­sti­tu­te for Con­struc­tion Eco­nom­ics, Uni­versity of Stut­tgart. In Janu­ary 2017 he be­came part­ner at Behnisch Ar­chitek­ten Stut­tgart.

Ste­fan Fors­ter
Is a man­aging part­ner at Ste­fan Fors­ter Ar­chi­tek­ten GmbH, Frank­furt

Stefan For­ster, Dipl.-Ing. Ar­chi­tect, born 1958 in Rock­en­hausen, foun­ded the of­fice Stefan For­ster Ar­chitek­ten 1989 in Darm­stadt. He stud­ied ar­chi­tec­ture at the TU Ber­lin (dip­loma 1984) and in Venice and was - after pro­fes­sion­al stops in Ber­lin and Man­nheim - 1988-1993 re­search as­so­ci­ate at the De­part­ment of Hous­ing of the TU Darm­stadt.

Prof. Hilde Léon

man­ager
Hilde Léon is an ar­chi­tect and man­aging dir­ect­or of the ar­chi­tec­ture firm léon­wohl­hage, which she foun­ded in 1987 to­geth­er with Kon­rad Wohl­hage († 2007). She stud­ied ar­chi­tec­ture at the Tech­nic­al Uni­versity Ber­lin and deepened her stud­ies with a schol­ar­ship from the DAAD at the Uni­versity of Venice.
Par­al­lel to her pro­fes­sion­al de­vel­op­ment as an ar­chi­tect, Hilde Léon worked in teach­ing and re­search. From 1997-1999 she held a vis­it­ing pro­fess­or­ship at the Col­lege of Fine Arts in Ham­burg. Since 2000 she has worked as a pro­fess­or at the In­sti­tu­te for Design and Build­ing The­ory at Leib­n­iz Uni­versität Han­nov­er and was elec­ted in 2019 as Dean of the Fac­ulty of Ar­chi­tec­ture and Land­scape.

Jo­hannes Laible

Jo­hannes Laible deals with ar­chi­tec­tur­al monu­ments, mi­cro-dwell­ings, bar­ri­er-free and en­ergy-ef­fi­cient build­ing. He is a found­ing mem­ber and board mem­ber of Pro Passivhaus e. V. and pub­lish­er of the an­nu­al journ­al Passivhaus Kom­pen­di­um, which has been pub­lished since 2006.

Dr. Frank Heid­rich
Head of the dir­ect­or­ate Heat­ing and ef­fi­ciency in build­ings, re­search in the Fed­er­al Min­stry of Eco­nom­ic Af­fairs and En­ergy

Dr. Frank Heid­rich was born in An­naberg in 1954. After fin­ish­ing his stud­ies in eco­nom­ics and do­ing his PhD, he worked as a re­search as­so­ci­ate at the build­ing academy in the Ger­man Demo­crat­ic Re­pub­lic. He then worked as a de­part­ment head in the GDR Fed­er­al Min­istry of Build­ing. In 1990 he be­came an ad­vi­sor in the Fed­er­al Min­istry of Build­ing, Re­gion­al Plan­ning and Urb­an De­vel­op­ment. From 2007 he worked as Head of Di­vi­sion in the Fed­er­al Min­is­tries for Trans­port, Con­struc­tion and Urb­an De­vel­op­ment (BM­VBS) and for Eco­nom­ics and En­ergy (BM­Wi). Since 2015, he has been Head of the II C De­part­ment Heat and Ef­fi­ciency in Build­ings, Re­search at the Fed­er­al Min­istry for Eco­nom­ic Af­fairs and En­ergy at the BM­Wi.

Di­eter Herz

Man­aging Dir­ect­or at Herz & Lang GmbH

Born in 1956, gradu­ate en­gin­eer (FH),  he stud­ied wood en­gin­eer­ing FHR. He is a CEPH plan­ner and DENA ap­praiser for hous­ing and monu­ment. Di­eter Herz acts as chair­man of the net­work Pass­ive House Aus­tria and is a board mem­ber of Holz For­um Allgäu. His areas of ex­pert­ise in­clude en­ergy-ef­fi­cient build­ing con­cepts, in­teg­ral plan­ning + pro­ject man­age­ment, net­works.

Georg Zielke

Ar­chi­tec­tur­al of­fice Zielke

He is an in­de­pend­ent ar­chi­tect, with many years of ex­per­i­en­ce in en­vir­on­ment­al and eco­nom­ic plan­ning for hous­ing. Since 2002 he has spe­cial­ized in plan­ning and real­iz­a­tion ac­cord­ing to pass­ive house stand­ard. Georg Zielke works closely with the Pass­ive House In­sti­tu­te in Darm­stadt. He par­ti­cip­ates in na­tion­al and in­ter­na­tion­al events to pro­mote the Pass­ive House prin­ciple throughout the world. His main in­terests and com­pet­en­ces are:
• Con­struc­tion of cost-ef­fect­ive and en­vir­on­ment­ally friendly hous­ing pro­jects • Use of eco­lo­gic­al build­ing ma­ter­i­als • De­vel­op­ment and re­con­struc­tion of ex­ist­ing prop­er­ties • Stand­ard­ized build­ing design
• Use of re­cyc­lable ma­ter­i­als.

Ron­ald Mey­er

Chair­man of the Ger­man Build­ing Mod­ern­iz­a­tion As­so­ci­ation BVGeM e.V.

A civil en­gin­eer with a fo­cus on "en­ergy-sav­ing and age-ap­pro­pri­ate con­struc­tion and mod­ern­iz­a­tion", has writ­ten 17 text­books and mod­er­ated a large num­ber of TV broad­casts. As ini­ti­at­or of the MOD­ERN­ISIRUNG­SOF­FENS­IVE, he net­works re­gion­al con­struc­tion and real es­tate pro­fes­sion­als. In his daily sem­inars, he provides com­pact and vividly en­ergy-sav­ing ba­sic know­ledge for con­struc­tion pro­fes­sion­als, with his en­ergy-sav­ing shows he mo­tiv­ates en­ter­tain­ing-in­form­at­ive homeown­ers to mod­ern­ize their homes. He is a found­ing mem­ber and chair­man of the Ger­man Build­ing Mod­ern­iz­a­tion As­so­ci­ation BVGeM e.V., based in Leipzig.

Chris­ti­ane Staab

May­or of the city Wall­dorf

Chris­ti­ane Staab, born 1968 in Karls­ruhe, stud­ied law at the Uni­versity of Man­nheim. She worked as a law­yer un­til 2010. Since 2011 she is may­or of the city of Wall­dorf, Baden-Württem­berg. Her vo­lun­teer work in­cludes par­ish coun­cilor in Karls­ruhe-Rüp­purr. She is a mu­ni­cip­al coun­cilor in Karls­ruhe for 11 years and cur­rently works in nu­mer­ous com­mit­tees and as­so­ci­ations on a mu­ni­cip­al policy level.

Jan Steiger
Pass­ive House In­sti­tu­te

Jan Steiger pur­sued a ca­reer as a tra­di­tion­al ar­chi­tect through his stud­ies at the Uni­versity of Stut­tgart com­ple­men­ted with vari­ous in­tern­ships. He be­came in­spired by the Pass­ive House Stand­ard in 2004 while work­ing at Mi­chael Tribus Ar­chi­tec­ture in South Tyr­ol as in­tern­al pro­ject man­ager on en­ergy ef­fi­ciency and Pass­ive House pro­jects. Jan joined the Pass­ive House In­sti­tu­te as a re­search­er in 2011, where he leads the de­vel­op­ment of PHPP and is thereby in­volved in the co­or­din­a­tion of pro­jects such as the DEEVi and the EU-fun­ded pro­ject EuroPHit. Al­ways seek­ing to provide a simple ex­plan­a­tion of cost-ef­fect­ive and en­ergy-ef­fi­cient con­struc­tion, Jan is also an ex­per­i­en­ced speak­er and cer­ti­fi­er of build­ings, doors and build­ing sys­tems.