Practical report: House from own cultivation

Preserving creation is everyday living practice to the Benedictine monks of Plankstetten Abbey. Their monastery, located on a site between the cities of Ingolstadt, Regensburg and Nuremberg, serves as a place of education and the property belonging to the abbey is used for organic agriculture. The monks placed high demands also on the expansion to their monastery: It was intended to meet passive house standards by using renewable materials as far as possible, non-hazardous in terms of building ecology and biology. The spruce timber for walls, ceilings, interior finishes and facade siding was sourced from the forests belonging to the abbey, straw bales was sourced from their own fields. The new, three storey linear building volume comprises 30 guest rooms for seminar guests, a kindergarten and office spaces for the parish. It is likely southern Germany’s largest building with straw bale insulation to date.