EXPERIMENTDAYS 10 special: Eurovisions

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Lohmühle by Janina Gallert

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Michael LaFond

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Photo by Janina Gallert

SFB Spreefeld Berlin, Köpenicker Straße 48/49, Mitte

A 13-member cooperative plans to build 6000-8000 sqm of economically and ecologically sustainable apartments overlooking the Spree. Deadline? 2013. Slogan? "Seventy percent housing, 100 percent living". Residents and architects work together to blend creativity and function. But sustainability trumps frills in this mecca for mindful urban professionals with the goal of combining living and working space.

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Werkpalast, Alfred-Jung-Straße 6, Lichtenberg

SelbstBau e.G.'s 20-unit building, with its fence-less fairytale garden setting in soon-to-be-hip Lichtenberg, charges its residents a monthly rent of 4-6.50 euros/sqm. The former-kindergarten-turned-working-class-palace has a waiting list, but you can test-drive the communal life during their frequent backyard fests.

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Strelitzer Straße 53, Mitte

Art without political agenda is what separates the Berlin Architekturpreis-winning Baugemeinschaft on Mitte's Strelitzer Straße from most others. The flats measure 80-200 sqm and average a purchase price of 2200 euros/sqm. The striking minimalist white façade (with its wicked fold-out balconies) is part of Anna von Gwinner's design. The Baugemeinschaft maintains a certain amount of sought-after privacy and independence as part of the formula for creative encouragement in the building's "many eyes".

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StadtGut Blankenfelde, Hauptstraße 30, Blankenfelde

A picturesque farm in quiet Blankenfelde has already enticed over 100 people to purchase a piece of Stadtgut Blankenfelde e.V.'s garden. But this 52,800 sqm farm is not just for weekend escapes. A huge farm is currently being converted to complement the existing living spaces, and 38 children attend a forest school run by the association.

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Tuntenhaus, Kastanienallee 86, Prenzlauer Berg

A queer paradise on gentrified Kastanienallee is appropriately home to a 16-member gay collective. For these homos, size doesn't matter: every room has the same 150 euro rent. But passing muster with the "knights of the kitchen table" requires "Tuntenfreund" status, meaning a gay man with left-wing political leanings. (Sorry Guido.)

Are modern metropolises doomed from property speculation and ever-encroaching gentrification? Or could grassroots initiatives possibly signal the beginning of more diversity in urban life? (Part of our EXPERIMENTDAYS 10 package – check out the links on the left side of the page for more!)

Michael LaFond of id22 Institute for Creative Sustainability gives us the skinny on alternative housing in Berlin.

What are the main housing challenges in Berlin right now?

You may know that the city of Berlin stopped directly supporting social housing or housing in any way a few years ago [see "Sexy, cheap and available? The Berlin Housing Myth"], so no publicly funded housing is being built. Along with that, we have the problem of gentrification, with rents going up. We don’t have a dramatic housing shortage yet, but it is developing. All of these things combined are forcing more and more people to think about new ways to deal with it.

There are many people in Berlin who want to live in an alternative way, but they’re having a hard time finding a building or financing. What we do is connect people with each other and lobby the city to make sure that information is being passed along.

It sounds like the authorities are not really being supportive…

Unfortunately, the city government isn’t terribly flexible or really creative and social-minded. It’s not that they’re against people doing stuff, but they’re not interested in supporting the projects directly. Even though we have a left-wing administration, we have a city government that is fairly conservative. But with the election coming up next year, things are getting more interesting: it will be our chance to get the debate out there and put pressure on everyone to be more progressive.

What about Berlin’s famous alternative living projects – its squats and communes?

Some places, like Lohmühle and Werkpalast have managed to stay alive [see our "Hot Housing" photo gallery] so there are some success stories out there, but they’re getting fewer. If you look back even just to 2003, there used to be quite a few non-profit housing projects. But since then... People who don’t have any money are pretty discouraged these days, and that has led to lots of protests and activism. In the last few months, one or two housing projects have been shut down, and some of the remaining ones, like KA86, are threatened. It’s not so much that they’re under attack from the city – more from capitalist forces.

Wohnportal is filled with cooperative projects that have yet to find an actual building site. How good are their chances of fulfilling their dream?

First of all, you have to differentiate between people who have money and ones who don’t. For the people who do, it’s just a question of time. For the others, we’re trying to help them by suggesting the government make more land available – they could do something like offering long-term leases. The city needs to take the social question seriously.

Berlin stats:

Population 3,342,267

Average apartment purchase price/sqm in the city centre €1750

Average monthly disposable income (after tax) €2017

Density/sqkm 3750

Average rent for a one-bedroom in the city centre €400/month

Check out the 'eurovisions' from five other metro-hubs in Europe to see how they do things and how Berlin itself stacks up.

Comments (1)

Comment Feed

fighting foreign investment

I think that there are still hundreds of buildings all over Berlin that are empty and waiting to have occupants. One of the big problems is the speculative bubble from investors and developers that they see Berlin as a goldmine, no-brainer investment. But this makes for hysteria like the cow that fell in the piranha river. Banks were nearly giving away mortgages, but how can you compete when you just want a flat, but the housing corporation wants the whole building?
Rent has gone way up, and apartment prices too. But wages and salaries haven't increased to match and Berlin has worse unemployment than Spain (anywhere up to 30%!).
Unless Berlin's productivity doesn't go up significantly in the next 5 years (which it may), I predict a market correction that will leave some (greedy) people and corporations left looking for government hand outs again.

Simon more than 8 years ago