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Ensuring energy quality, i.e. compliance with specified or standardised energy performance indicators of buildings over the entire life cycle, can reduce the climate impact of the building sector. In this work, the causes for quality deficiencies in small building services installations as well as the structure of actors interacting with building services were analysed. On this basis, we developed a solution approach in the form of an information model including a catalogue of all requirements and the necessary content to address and improve the quality assurance of HVAC in small buildings. This information model will serve as the basis for future digital tools that can perform (partially) automated heating load calculations and the design of heating systems, improve installation logistics and installation quality through providing information and the necessary processing, and enable improved hydraulic balancing and control.

In accordance with the UN Sustainable Development Goals, many countries aim at nearly zero carbon emissions of their building sector by 2050. The research college EnEff.Buildings.2050 is a collaboration of five PhD students and their supervisors to support this goal. In this paper, five key action fields for transformation of urban districts are described, and decisive stakeholders are identified and linked to the action fields. As a case study, the urban district Mierendorff-Island in Berlin is introduced. Three strategies to support transformation are identified: Firstly, new digital planning tools should be applied to assess and improve the energetic performance of new and existing buildings and to illustrate it to decision makers. Secondly, digital processes should be combined throughout the lifecycle of a building by building information modeling (BIM). This can ensure the energetic quality and enable cost-effective construction, servicing and monitoring. Thirdly, start-ups and contractors need support for development of new business models and technical solutions, which can e.g. enable disruptive technologies. Awareness of stakeholders on the transformational state of a district enables them to identify windows of opportunity to spring into action. Framework conditions and support measures determine if they act in favour of the transformation or not.

Low temperature cofiring ceramic (LTCC) combines hybrid technology, biocompatibility, chemical resistance and ease of fabrication to serve as a construction material for microfluidics. Due to the lack of CAD tools for MEMS this paper applies a model for the description of stationary flow in LTCC channels of non circular cross sections. Sample devices for validation are fabricated by laser structuring and standard LTCC process. The substrates consist of 130 mum thick layers and are connected horizontally to a tubing system. Characteristic length scales range between 131 mum and 159 mum. Deviations stay within the assumed uncertainty and confirm the theory. Results show that applying solutions of geometry description in accepted fluid mechanics models gives an appropriate tool for flow description. Implementing the model as a network description in the describing language MOSILAB can allow dimensioning and optimization under functional restrictions, e.g. pressure drop or geometry as well as communication with other modeling tools