034 Einfamilienhaus-Haus
Place:
Year:
Team:
Year:
Team:
Stendal
2022-
Caroline Axelsen, Christian Cotting, David Gössler, Aimée Michelfelder, Jakob Wolters und Jurek Brüggen
2022-
Caroline Axelsen, Christian Cotting, David Gössler, Aimée Michelfelder, Jakob Wolters und Jurek Brüggen
The situation seems absurd: tens of thousands of flats in prefabricated buildings in Eastern Germany are being destroyed to make way for a few single-family houses. In many eastern German cities with shrinking populations like Stendal, Frankfurt (Oder), Wittenberge and others empty prefabricated buildings are being completely demolished in order to build a few new, detached single-family houses. In Stendal alone, more than 6,000 flats in prefabricated slab buildings were demolished between 2000 and 2013, including an entire city district (Stendal South). By 2050, 1,000 more flats in prefabricated buildings are to follow.
If one considers the ecological consequences of this demolition policy, the scope of this development becomes clear. According to the Deutsche Umwelthilfe (DHU), more than 14,000 buildings are demolished in Germany every year. Of the construction waste, only a vanishingly small proportion can be recycled and reused in building construction, so that the construction industry generates around 230 million tonnes of construction waste each year through demolition alone - more than half of all German waste. The grey energy invested during construction is lost. The built city should be understood as a gigantic CO2 reservoir.
In addition to the energy issue, land sealing also represents an immense ecological consequential damage of building. Due to its low urban density, the typology of the single-family house inevitably promotes further urban sprawl and additionally leads to an increased volume of traffic.
In Germany alone, 160 square kilometres of soil are sealed every year, which is roughly equivalent to the area of Potsdam. Sealed soils lose their quality as a biodiverse habitat and as an ecological compensation and infiltration area.
Concerns about the climate and biodiversity are countered by the dream of the detached single-family house, which is still cherished by more than 63% of Germans. How can these positions be reconciled? Can there be a single-family house in an apartment building - a single-family house? And - to return to the starting point - can existing prefabricated buildings be converted to offer all the qualities of a single-family house? Can the Germans' most popular form of housing have an ecological future?
With the support of local politicians and stakeholders, AFEA developed an exemplary preliminary plan for a building in Stendal owned by the Wohnungsbau-Genossenschaft Altmark eV (WBGA) that will be vacant in the future. The building is a WBS70 type of prefabricated housing. This housing series constitutes the largest share of industrially constructed prefabricated housing in Germany.
The existing building will be preserved as far as possible and will only be partly dismantled from above. The resulting roof areas will become gardens. Several smaller flats are combined into houses over two storeys each. The measures follow the constructive logic of the serial, joined slab building. Existing openings in the slabs, as well as all staircases, will be retained and only partially added to. In the basement, ground floor and first floor there are 8 row houses with private gardens in the courtyard. The room height of the garden-facing living spaces extends over two storeys with a clear room height of over 5 metres. The upper houses are reached through two open, vertical streets with a new lift and open staircase. The buildings are entered via front gardens. The gardens with covered terraces are located behind the houses on the roofs of the row houses. Four more single-family houses with gardens on the roofs form the upper end on the 4th floor.
The fully greened roofs compensate for the sealed floor area and continue the green district on the terraced roofs of the building. The east and west façades and parapet areas can be covered with white photovoltaic panels in the grid of prefabricated panels, so that the building supplies itself with climate-neutral energy over the course of the year.
The result is a dense yet spacious and green residential structure that combines all the qualities of single-family homes in an urban context. The project is a proposal for a new type of building between a detached house and an apartment block - the Einfamilienhaus-Haus. Compared to a typical single-family housing estate, there will be 260% more residential units and 350% more public space. Soil sealing will be halved and fully compensated for by the green roofs. The urban structure of Soviet modernism with detached buildings in green spaces is preserved, repaired and re-used. The grey energy in the building is preserved and demolition prevented. The most popular form of housing in Germany, the single-family house, may yet have a future in an ecological world.
Construction is due to start in spring 2025.
in collaboration with David Gössler
photos by Alexander Paul Brandes
visualisations and collages by ammi
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If one considers the ecological consequences of this demolition policy, the scope of this development becomes clear. According to the Deutsche Umwelthilfe (DHU), more than 14,000 buildings are demolished in Germany every year. Of the construction waste, only a vanishingly small proportion can be recycled and reused in building construction, so that the construction industry generates around 230 million tonnes of construction waste each year through demolition alone - more than half of all German waste. The grey energy invested during construction is lost. The built city should be understood as a gigantic CO2 reservoir.
In addition to the energy issue, land sealing also represents an immense ecological consequential damage of building. Due to its low urban density, the typology of the single-family house inevitably promotes further urban sprawl and additionally leads to an increased volume of traffic.
In Germany alone, 160 square kilometres of soil are sealed every year, which is roughly equivalent to the area of Potsdam. Sealed soils lose their quality as a biodiverse habitat and as an ecological compensation and infiltration area.
Concerns about the climate and biodiversity are countered by the dream of the detached single-family house, which is still cherished by more than 63% of Germans. How can these positions be reconciled? Can there be a single-family house in an apartment building - a single-family house? And - to return to the starting point - can existing prefabricated buildings be converted to offer all the qualities of a single-family house? Can the Germans' most popular form of housing have an ecological future?
With the support of local politicians and stakeholders, AFEA developed an exemplary preliminary plan for a building in Stendal owned by the Wohnungsbau-Genossenschaft Altmark eV (WBGA) that will be vacant in the future. The building is a WBS70 type of prefabricated housing. This housing series constitutes the largest share of industrially constructed prefabricated housing in Germany.
The existing building will be preserved as far as possible and will only be partly dismantled from above. The resulting roof areas will become gardens. Several smaller flats are combined into houses over two storeys each. The measures follow the constructive logic of the serial, joined slab building. Existing openings in the slabs, as well as all staircases, will be retained and only partially added to. In the basement, ground floor and first floor there are 8 row houses with private gardens in the courtyard. The room height of the garden-facing living spaces extends over two storeys with a clear room height of over 5 metres. The upper houses are reached through two open, vertical streets with a new lift and open staircase. The buildings are entered via front gardens. The gardens with covered terraces are located behind the houses on the roofs of the row houses. Four more single-family houses with gardens on the roofs form the upper end on the 4th floor.
The fully greened roofs compensate for the sealed floor area and continue the green district on the terraced roofs of the building. The east and west façades and parapet areas can be covered with white photovoltaic panels in the grid of prefabricated panels, so that the building supplies itself with climate-neutral energy over the course of the year.
The result is a dense yet spacious and green residential structure that combines all the qualities of single-family homes in an urban context. The project is a proposal for a new type of building between a detached house and an apartment block - the Einfamilienhaus-Haus. Compared to a typical single-family housing estate, there will be 260% more residential units and 350% more public space. Soil sealing will be halved and fully compensated for by the green roofs. The urban structure of Soviet modernism with detached buildings in green spaces is preserved, repaired and re-used. The grey energy in the building is preserved and demolition prevented. The most popular form of housing in Germany, the single-family house, may yet have a future in an ecological world.
Construction is due to start in spring 2025.
in collaboration with David Gössler
photos by Alexander Paul Brandes
visualisations and collages by ammi
