Astrid Schneider – Solar Architecture – Design, research & communication

BIMODE Project

The BIMODE-Project was an interdisciplinary research project in the years 1998-1999, funded by the European Commission within the Joule programme. Artists, architects, engeneers, researchers and industry worked together to achieve new forms of artistic expression with crystalline solar cells. The challenge for the artists and designers of the Academy of Media Arts Cologne within the BIMODE-Project group was to use the technology of differently shaped coloured and interconnected crystalline solar cells to design solar facade elements. The solar module was seen as an element of a facade composition. The aim was to enhance the visual appearance of buildings and to show the possible variety of solar aesthetics. On the basis of three generic prototypes, virtual solar facade designs have been made to demonstrate the different possibilities of expression.

Astrid Schneider worked as an architect and Designer at the Cologne Media Art School (khm) at this project with the media artist Prof. Jürgen Claus, film maker Künstler Helmut Costard and artist Jörg Paul Janka.

Inortant research project team partners were:

BP Solarex, T.M. Bruton, R. Tölle, R. Noble; TU-Wien, M. Radike, J. Summhammer; Ove-Arup & Partners, D. Hilcox; TFM, O. Aceves, O. Anzizu; Bayer AG, W. Koch; Technical University of Madrid, IES, ESTI Telecommunicacion, I. Tobias, A. Luque