A house like a rock in the landscape

ABB i-bus® KNX supports comfortable living in a weekend home made of concrete

Southwest of Heidelberg, in the village of Bammental, is where the house is located. It is completely made of concrete and is nestled like a black stone in the wooded landscape. The back side of the home is fully glassed. Builder and owner Thomas opens the large-sized sliding glass wall to the garden and lets the warm evening breeze in. “Come here, feel at ease and relax. Those were our goals,” his wife Claudia explains. In the house, the family installed the system ABB i-bus® KNX for smart building control to enjoy top-level comfort.

 

Good constructional properties

The concrete home is an experiment. In his own house, he took the abilities and advantages of light concrete to the extreme. “Through the use of aggregates, light concrete achieves insulation values that allow for single-wall construction. In addition, light concrete is soundproof and promises a good indoor climate, since the material can compensate for fluctuations in humidity. I wanted a house that would be completely built from concrete.” Yet working with light concrete does have its drawbacks. The material needs to be handled in a narrow time window of about 35 minutes. In spite of the high proportion of porous aggregates, a properly smooth and homogeneous surface was achieved. To protect against frost damage, dirt as well as algae growth, the house was then coated with a hydrophobic concrete glaze with a deep anthracite color.


Convenient home automation control with the KNX System from ABB 


The living area is left open. A large kitchen block with a view of the pool seamlessly borders with a sunken cozy sitting area with fireplace and TV. A sharply cut staircase leads upstairs to two bedrooms and a bathroom. The interior color throughout the house: white. An attractive and modern contrast to the dark shell of the monolith. The focus was on design and aesthetics, down to the smallest detail. They had the switches and socket outlets from the extravagant carat® flat range coated with a special matte white finish. The flush-mounted wall installation of the product range blended in perfectly with the simple interior furnishings and was a perfect match with the Busch-ComfortPanel®, with which the inhabitants can control the entire home automation system.

KNX touch display from ABB

Equipped with the efficient KNX controller from ABB, the house reacts to the wishes of its inhabitants. ABB i-bus®  KNX can be appropriately implemented for any building and any task and combines complete home control with useful informational and entertainment functions. The living room is pleasantly warm just on time, the bedroom stays nice and cool, and the light adjusts to the situation. Thanks to operation using the Busch-ComfortPanel®, individual control of the living environment becomes a true experience. The panel is operated intuitively using the well-known swipe movement, the same way as on mobile end devices.

 

Control via APP even when you’re away

The family enjoys even more convenience thanks to remote access to the home control system. With the KNX Busch-ControlTouch® from Busch-Jaeger, all KNX components can be controlled independently of the permanently installed control elements and panels. The system is controlled only through an App for a smartphone or tablet. “So we can for example set the heating to the temperature we want even before we arrive at the weekend house,” says the builder and owner with great enthusiasm. The couple installed the Busch-DigitalRadio in the bathroom. Thanks to the flush-mounted installation and integrated speaker, the radio promises excellent sound without the cable clutter and works ideally with the simple lines that the concrete house presents inside and out.


Discover more

ABB i-bus® KNX
Visualisation, Display and Signalling
Smarter Home
Smarter Building
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