Freiburg is a city of 200,000 inhabitants located in beautiful countryside on the edge of the Black Forest in southern Germany.
It is a university city, an important industrial and commercial center, and a tourist center. But today it is better known as the ecological capital of Germany. The old town is completely pedestrianised, recycling is a way of life and people use bicycles and public transport to get around. In one part of the city, cars are prohibited: drivers must park on the edge of the suburb in a special parking lot with solar panels on the roof. The result is that very few residents own cars.
On the outskirts of the town there is a special neighborhood where all the houses are powered by solar energy. Here is a single-family house that at first glance seems quite strange. It is an experimental ecological house called Heliotrope. It looks like a smallish block of flats sitting on a narrow platform. In the center of the house there is a spiral staircase, and going up you see large, bright rooms with triple-glazed windows and spacious balconies. Huge solar panels provide power for heating, cooking, refrigerator, light bulbs and all other appliances. But the most surprising thing about the house is that it rotates, the sun goes down from morning to night to maximize the energy it produces. Although it rotates very slowly, the movement is noticeable. It feels a bit like being on a ship on a calm sea or in a tree house. The good news is that the technology works: the house produces five times more electricity than it consumes.
Freiburg is a window into the future that shows how urban life can change. Perhaps one day we will all live in houses like the Heliotrope. If we do that, we’ll never have to worry about electricity bills again. And we will never get bored with the view.