DESIGN STUDIO, WS 2015/2016
Prof. Dr. Philipp Misselwitz, Oliver Schetter

Home Grown, Housing Alliances in Berlin

The Urban Design Studio investigates the emerging housing shortage in Berlin triggered by demographic change and lack of appropriate policies. The studio will develop strategies that bring together both actors such as planning authorities and large housing associations, as well as emerging local actors such as grass root initiatives, residents associations or cooperatives. We will research their divergent interests and modi operandi, reasons for current lack of cooperation and the scope to forge new alliances in order to (auto)-provide affordable housing for a diverse clientele with generally limited means and resources.

The studio includes research on institutions and key actors, housing prototypes, available sites for development and their relation with the city’s spatial, functional and social fabric. The students will enact different interest groups simulating a real conflict in a “Planspiel”. This will bring the practical dimension of the political processes to the classroom and provides a link for the subsequent development of process-driven urban design proposals.

The goal of the studio is firstly to better understand the different actors and relevant processes. Secondly to develop creative design concepts, using different tools and methods, that replace current provision-oriented approaches to housing with new forms of co-production and actor-driven planning. Thus the studio will produce a number of diverse yet in themselves complex, complete and coherent design projects.