Description

The building plot was acquired following a successful concept submission for a plot put out to tender by the Liegenschaftsfonds Berlin as part of a land allocation procedure for collective custom build projects. The concept included a concrete design proposal with cost calculations and a time schedule. The compact high-rise building with basement, six full storeys and a roof level has an internal staircase opening onto three apartments per floor as well as two service duct cores. In the somewhat diverse vicinity are further high-rise buildings and a school from the 1960s. The collective custom build project comprises 19 apartments and one atelier built as a concrete frame structure with modular timber infill sections. A special feature of the project is the perimeter gallery attached as a steel construction to the perimeter of each floor that serves both as a second means of access, as a communication zone and as a balcony for the apartments, creating an area in which private lives and community overlap. The residents agreed jointly that the gallery would not be subdivided into individual sections per apartment. Communal spaces were originally planned on each floor but later discarded in favour of creating a 130m² large multipurpose space in the basement. In addition, there is a communal laundry room and workshop, and the large roof garden with summer kitchen and the garden around the house can be used by all the residents.

The house contains apartments of different sizes and layouts to accommodate the respective needs and means of the residents. Their wish for a communal but affordable living environment has resulted in simple finishes: surface-mounted installations, robust finishes and in some places exposed materials. The project forgoes the pleasantries of attractive finishes in favour of providing an individually tailored and nevertheless communal living environment.

The building community came together successively around a concept developed by the architects and project developers. A core group developed the basic concept and put in a bid for an option on the site. As the project developed, further members joined the group. In numerous meetings in varying constellations, the floor plans were developed together with the residents, and the location, function and finishes of the communal spaces were decided jointly as a group.

The site was found through the Berlin Senate’s fixed-price land allocation programme for collective custom build projects, organised jointly with the Liegenschaftsfonds Berlin, the city’s public property portfolio management company. Building communites could bid for several sites that were available through a concept-based allocation procedure.

The project was initiated by the architects in January 2010 and within the first three months, a core group had formed. The remainder joined over the course of the first year. After the site bidding process in August 2010, a purchase option for the site was secured for the duration of one year. The initiators, associated project developers and planners had a year to put the project on a firm footing, to recruit the remaining members and detail their plans. The building was constructed between 2011 and 2013.

Privately financed with third-party loans (including KfW loans via the Umweltbank) as required.

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Originally published in: Annette Becker, Laura Kienbaum, Kristien Ring, Peter Cachola Schmal, Bauen und Wohnen in Gemeinschaft / Building and Living in Communities, Birkhäuser, 2015.