Green. Building. Solutions.

Green. Building. Solutions.

Passivhaus Aspanggründe Multiunit Residential

NGO and Project Manager

Green. Building. Solutions.

District Heating & District Cooling plant - Energie Wien

Green. Building. Solutions.

Passivhaus Multi Unit Residential, Vienna

Martin Treberspurg

Green. Building. Solutions.

Green. Building. Solutions.

Aspen Urban Lakeside Masterplan with Peter Hinterkorner

• Net area: 100ha
• Development period: 20 years
• Planned gross floor space: 2.2 million sq.m
• Housing: 8,500 flats for 20,000ppl
• Working: 20,000 workplaces
• AESU – Handbook for sustainable city.
• Neutral Buildings - good idea for future adaptability and long life cycle
• Medium density living, mixed use buildings with public space connections
• vehicular access reduced, communal carparks "every car user is a pedestrian on their way to a car"
• Urban development where they put a lot of work into defining the marketing strategies and providing the guidelines for what should be constructed on individual sites. However there is always room for the developer to take the minimum standard.

Europe Week 5: Rome to Sorrento and back again

Dear friends and family,

I am writing tonight from Florence which in my opinion is one of the most beautiful cities in the world. I had the same thought when I was here 5 years ago and returning to this city has just cemented that fact! It’s one of my favourite things about travelling when you find somewhere that just makes you go “WOW!” We’re only here for one night so I think a return trip will definitely be planned in the future!

This past week in Italy has been wonderful! Em and I have mixed sight seeing and pounding the pavement around hot cities with relaxing on beautiful beaches under stripy umbrellas. It’s been a great week. And would recommend to everyone everywhere to come to Italy – you can’t help but love it!

We arrived in Rome last Monday for four nights in our own studio apartment close to all the major sights including the Trevi Fountain and Spanish Steps. The location was great being so accessible to all the major sights, however the American tourists swarmed the hot city streets all week, making everything even more exhausting. Walking down the street we would hear more American English than Italian!! After the relatively quiet tourist areas of Spain it was quite a shock to see so many tourists. But in peak season what more can you expect? The sights themselves were everything you expect them to be. We spent a hot afternoon on Tuesday visiting the Colosseum, Roman Forum, Pantheon and the famous Piazza Novena and Veneiza. However the heat in Rome was tooo much for us and soon tired of the chaos of the city. So on Wednesday we took a day trip out to the beach of Sperlonga an hour south of Rome. It was a perfect day for the beach with lots of sun beating down on our fired umbrella and sunbeds. It was a great day! On Thursday we once again faced the heat of the city to visit the Vatican City. The Sistine Chapel and St. Peter’s Basilica were both absolutely stunning with their artistic detail and sheer scale, however the heat and thr tourists eventually forced us back into the sanctuary of our air-conditioned studio for a nice home cooked dinner!

On Friday we awoke early to begin our three day Italian Adventure tour. It was an awesome three days! We saw the ruins of Pompeii, which we just as fascinating as I always imagined they would be! Another one of my childhood dreams ticked off the list! Our accommodation was in the gorgeous town of Sorrento on the Amalfi Coast. The town was filled with lovely shops and restaurants and it is part of the local tradition for everyone to “Promenade”, which is basically just strolling around the streets, at around 8-9pm. This creates a lovely community atmosphere as everyone is out on the streets enjoying the last rays of sun and revelling in the day that has passed – lovely! We travelled to Isle of Capri the following day, an exclusive island surrounded by the aquamarine waters of the Mediterranean. After a choppy ferry ride over we were relieved to disembark and relax on the beach all day! The final day of the tour was spent on the bus winding along the scenic Amalfi coastline and soaking up the fantastic views…Please refer to facebook photos for more details. I would recommend that everyone come to the Amalfi coast when they visit Italy it has been the most beautiful scenery of my trip so far!! And the Italian food’s not bad either!

So Em and I are entering our last week together before we part ways in Nice and I make my way to Vienna to start my course…exciting! But the week ahead will no doubt be filled with lots more beauty and adventures for us to soak up.

Hope you are all well,

Love Sarah.

Europe: Lisbon to Barcelona

Dear family and friends,

Emily and I are now in Rome! Finally, we have made it to Italy! We have our own apartment in the middle of the city with a little kitchenette where we can cook all our meals. By the end of the tour we were both glad never to see that bus again, we met a lot of nice people and made some friends too. The distance we managed to cover in only three weeks was extraordinary. I feel like I´ve seen so much of Spain, Morocco and Portugal and now I know all the best bits to come back to! I have recovered from my illnesses and am feeling a lot better. The last week of the tour Em and I took the time to relax which means we didn´t do as much sight seeing as other weeks but we still covered a lot!

Last Sunday we saw the beautiful palaces of Sintra, the Palacio de Pena and Palacio de Monserrate outside of Lisbon. Than we arrived in the Portugese city of Porto where we did a walking tour of Porto seeing the Gothic Churches, main train station and town square. We went on a river cruise which was lovely and sunny until a storm came over and it started raining. The cruise gave us a great view of the seven bridges of the city.

The next day we travelled to Mardrid, stopping at the University town on Salamanca along the way. Salamanca is a lovely University town with a gorgeous cathedral. Just outside of Madrid we also stopped to look at the Valley of the Fallen, a huge Basilica built by the losing army of the Spanish Civil war. The army were forced to build the Basilica by the winning army in the 1950's and it is an incredibly moving place.

The next day was our free day in Madrid. It was the best day! I saw three of the main art galleries, (and loved it!) as well as the Royal Palaces of Spain. That night Em and I watched a Flamenco Ballet version of Carmen the Opera, which was amazing!

Next we travelled to San Sebastian via Segovia; a quiet little village which contains the castle that forms the inspiration for Snow White’s castle. That night we arrived in San Sebastian, where we were surprised to find our accommodation was less than perfect but we managed to survive it for the next few nights!! The hadn't even finished painting the walls and some people didn't have beds to sleep in!

The next day we awoke early to get to the Running of the Bulls in Pamplona. The whole experience of running of the bulls was great and it was interesting to see that side of Spanish culture. The run itself takes place at 8am and then the bulls run into the stadium (where we were seated) followed by the crowd. The crowd all stay in the arena and then they release younger bulls with their horns taped. You may feel bad for the people still in the stadium, but don’t... they’re the ones who then taunt the bulls into charging for them, which I thought was rather cruel. That afternoon we went back to San Sebastian and walked along the beach to enjoy the last of the Spanish sun’s rays.

By Sunday night we were back to Barcelona and had a fantastic dinner with our tour group as our last celebration. So that's all the action from the past week I hope everyone is going well back home. I'm having a great time but looking forward to seeing everyone back in Australia very soon!

Love Sarah.

Week 3 - Tangers to Lisbon

Dear friends and family,

I am writing to you on my free afternoon from Porto in Portugal. It’s amazing how quickly the time has flown in the past week. Only one more week of the tour to go before Em and I head to Rome, which we are both really excited about! But first, I wanted to share a few of the adventures we have had over the past week as we travelling from Morocco, back to Spain and through to Portugal.

For the past week I’ve been dealing with both a cold, which seems to be going around the bus through the air-conditioning system, and “Moroccan belly”, which is the dreaded illness that mess’ with your tummy and digestive system, due to the bacteria found on all the plates and cutlery in Morocco. So there’s been a lot of R&R this week as well as sightseeing to allow my body a chance to recover! So I will try to forget that it’s Morocco that got me so sick and let you know about all the wonderful things about this interesting country…

Our first port of arrival was Tangers where we stayed one night. Em and I shared a hotel room and during the middle of the night there was a party outside out bedroom window! We awoke to horns beeping and music playing with people singing and shouting. Apparently this is the quite normal for a wedding celebration… and this from a people that don’t drink any alcohol!

On the Monday morning we travelled to Fez. It was just as we were leaving Tangers, however, that we started to hear a banging noise from underneath the bus. When the noise kept going we told our driver and he pulled quickly off the freeway. When the driver and tour guide went to investigate the engine compartment out scampered two very bewildered looking 12 year old boys! They had stowed away under the bus as they thought we were going on the ferry back to Spain. These stowaways must have been leading a pretty terrible life to go to such extremes, but our tour guide says it has happened every time he’s taken a tour to Morocco!

On a more positive note, the food in Morocco was AMAZING! (Yes, yes I know I am now sick because of it but it’s due to the plates and cutlery rather than the food itself!) The tradition method of cooking is called a tagine, which is like a meat, vegetable, fruit and nut casserole cooked in a terracotta pot served with cous cous, and everything has a lovely pinch of saffron – Yummy! We dined like royalty in Morocco every lunch and dinner and it was very reasonably priced. At breakfast time we were served croissants and other French pastries as the Moroccan people have only be out of French rule since the last century.

On Tuesday we went on a tour of Fez with our local guide Mohammed (or MoMo as he was nicknamed) taking us to a lookout over the city, to the royal palace gates and finally into the Medina, which means old city. The Medina forms the local market place and resembles something you would have seen in the movie Aladdin with its narrow laneways and clay facades. Though the heat outside may have been 40 degrees the Medina’s shady breezeways were a cool relief from the heat. You could easily get lost in these laneways, and after dinner Em and I almost did, luckily we were able to back track and find the right turn otherwise we could have spent a good few hours trying to get out!

The next day we ventured into the 45 degree heat to visit the Roman ruins at Volubilis, which were amazing. But, we could wait to get back onto the bus and into the air-conditioning! We then travelled to Meknes a beautiful Moroccan city, where we saw the royal palace gates, the Medina and went into a Mosque. That evening we had a Gala dinner with more delicious food and a performance of belly dancers!

On Thursday we said goodbye to Morocco and boarded the ferry back to Tarifa, but not before a minor incident where the bus broke down. Luckily the tour leader and bus driver were able to fix it, but for a second there I was worried that we wouldn’t be getting out of Morocco! We arrived safely in Seville in the evening and that night headed to for one of the girl’s birthday, which was a really fun insight into Spanish nightlife!

The next morning we had a walking tour of Seville where we saw the Golden Tower, the Royal Gardens and the University. After the walk we were pretty tired so Em and I went shopping. It was only when we sat down to lunch that Em realised that she didn’t have her iPhone… it had been stolen. So we spent the afternoon at the police station filing a report. Em was very upset about it – but she now has a cheap phone and a new laptop to stay connected and with her insurance she will have a new iPhone awaiting her when she returns to Australia. It makes me even more cautious about looking after my valuables as pick pocketing is very common over here. That evening, to forget our troubles, we went to a Flamenco show, which was absolutely stunning. The costumes and the dances were outstanding! There were 6 female dancers and one male, accompanied by a trio of guitarists and singers conveying their traditional Spanish tunes.

On Saturday we were on the bus to Lisbon, Portugal and that evening met the 14 new members of our tour group over a huge group dinner. The next day we had free time to explore Lisbon, which is a very cosmopolitan city, which reminds me of Melbourne. We also had to adjust to speaking Portuguese rather than Spanish to the local populace.

Sa. Xx

Week 2 - Barcelona to Tangers

Dear Friends and Family,

When I last spoke to you I was in the hostel in Barcelona ready to begin my spanish adventure. Already that seems like so long ago... Since then Em and I have joined our tour group which is full of really nice people and we've seen so much of the culture and beauty of Spain.

Barcelona was beautiful. I really enjoyed seeing the beautiful architecture of Antoni Gaudi; who was an Art Nauveau Architect working in the 1920s. His building are all about sculpture and colour and I'll put some pics on facebook for you to see. Poor Em spent the time in bed with a cold from getting wet feet in rainy London so I had the time to myself to sketch the amazing shapes of Gaudi's roof tops on Monday night and the cooky steps of the Gaudi's Park on Tuesday morning before our tour started in the afternoon.

The tour has been a lot of fun so far and everyone is really nice and friendly. Mostly girls in their early to mid 20s scatted with a few guys we have mostly Aussies and a few Kiwis, one Canadian and American too. Our tour leader Greg is a beefy Aussie bloke who confesses to wanting to find a Spanish Sheila so that he can live in settle in Spain, but as long as he helps us get from A to B and tells us a little bit about where we're going that's what counts. Tom our bus driver, is a 52 year old grandfather who was born in India, lived in the UK but now lives in Spain with his wife but everyone thinks he's Moroccan!

After Barca we were on the bus to Valencia. Which is a beautiful city with lovely Cathedrals and little laneways with balconies where residents hang their washing. We spent the day at the beach and in the evening there was a Festival where all the locals came down to the beach as well. Part of the ritual of the festival is that everyone can light bonfires , so you end up with hundreds of bonfires along this very long beach, later in the night the locals jump over the bonfires! As you can imagine our clothes were very smoky!

The next day we were on the bus to Granada in the South of Spain, we had a walking tour and a group dinner of Tortilla Espanol - a potato omelette which was very nice!

On Saturday we headed up to the Alhambra, a Palace which was the last Moorish strong hold in Europe before the Spanish beat them into retreat and began the Spanish Inquisition, with the Spanish royals taking over the Palace as their home. This was one of the highlights of the trip for me and I was not disappointed. The palace interior and the gardens themselves were beautiful even if the temperature that day was 45 degrees which made it hard to get through the 5 hours we spent there!

Sunday were on the bus again to catch the ferry from Terifa in Spain to Tangers in Morocco crossing the Mediterranean Sea. The ferry itself only took 35 mins which demonstrate how short the distance from Spain to North Africa really is! We arrive in Tangers with our dresses covering our knees and t-shirts covering our sholders to abide by the Muslim dress code for women and we began out time in a new country b a walking tour around the oldest part of the city which forms a labyrinth of lane ways where it is far too easy to get lost! Before we knew it the street opened up onto a beautiful clifftop over looking the Mediterranean - it was breathtaking!

So, I am currently sitting in the courtyard of the hotel in Fez with the sniffles and sore throat that seems to have been transported around the tour group through the air-conditioning system. But I feel like I'm on the road to recovery and tomorrow we'll be on the road from Fez back to Seville in Spain. But if you want to hear all about our Moroccan adventures you have to wait until the next email!!

Sa. xx