How to make urban housing sustainable and high in quality of life.

In collaboration with Mars Architekten and a team of building contractors, architects and sectoral planners we have been working on the research project “Typenhaus” of the public housing association “Stadt und Land”. A “Typenhaus” refers to a house constructed out of standardised parts that can be customised for all types of building situations. Through this work key elements for optimizing housing construction costs were identified.

As co-initiator and founding member of the German Association for Sustainable Building (“Deutsche Gesellschaft für Nachhaltiges Bauen”, DGNB e.V.) and co-author of “A Practical Guide to Sustainable Building” (“Praxis-Handbuch für Nachhaltige Gebäude”) we focus on designing sustainable structures that are effective throughout their life cycle and meet their expected values.

Unlike architectural competitions, urban planning competitions and participatory procedures concerning urban planning rarely include an assessment of costs or sustainability. As part of Mr. Dennis Müller’s bachelor’ thesis, we designed an efficient tool that shows participating citizens, urban planners and decision-makers the effects their choices will have on future tenants.