Background
There is a lack of affordable housing with a good quality of life in Germany – studies speak of a shortage of up to 800,000 homes¹. 9.5 million people – that’s more than one in ten – live in too little space². In addition, the building sector accounts 37 per cent of energy and process-related CO2 emissions and over 34 per cent of energy demand globally³. Therefore, transforming the building sector is crucial in promoting a resource-conserving economy and combating global warming. Adapting the built environment to changing conditions is essential. This includes designing climate-resilient cities, accommodating changing lifestyles, and moving towards smart cities. Additionally, affordable, high-quality housing is also a key objective of political decision-makers.
Goals
For that purpose, the Building & Living Platform focuses on developing and evaluating solutions with a particular focus on the importance of affordability, sustainability, and quality (essential living comfort). The emphasis is on existing building structures in (sub)urban areas and their potential for sustainable transformation - by adding storeys, reusing and redensification.
The aim is to identify obstacles that stand in the way of more affordable living space in existing urban areas. In order to overcome these, concrete solutions will be developed in collaborative discussions, which will be summarized as options and recommendations for action for political decision-makers. In addition, the positions and recommendations developed will also be prepared for other target groups, for example as guidelines and using best practice examples as impulses for the transfer of practice and technology.
How we work
The platform project is coordinated centrally by the acatech office, documenting and consolidating the status of discussions and expertise from all relevant perspectives. Various stakeholders from science, industry and civil society are collaborating in three working groups with different focus areas, analysing and linking existing knowledge from the social, natural and technical sciences.
Already during the project development phase and the initial meetings of the working groups and advisory board, potential topics and aspects were researched, collected, and discussed. Based on this, subject categories were created which, structured and sorted according to defined objectives, will serve as central working documents during the course of the project and will be continuously developed over time. The working groups have evaluated and prioritised the various topics. In working group meetings, arguments are further debated. The project's scientific advisors conduct interviews with the respective experts from the working groups in order to deepen the discussions and prepare the publications. In this way, the topics are incorporated into concrete options and recommendations for action and argumentation guides.
The solutions developed by the working groups are also presented and further explored in two Delphi group discussions with experts. Additionally, in two citizen councils, people from different regions of Germany discuss the recommendations, focusing on potential conflicts of interest and questions of social acceptance. The results of these processes are fed back into the working groups for further discussion and refinement. Both formats are conducted in collaboration with Dialogik as the scientific partner.
Cross-working group topics will be discussed intensively in complementary deep dives.
A real-world labs mapping in the form of a digital map will visualize the existing real-world laboratories in Germany and will be integrated into this website. This development is currently in progress in cooperation with the KIT's research group ‘Designing Real-World Laboratory Research’.
Results
The aim is to develop economically, legally and socially viable solutions that provide politicians, administrators and practitioners with clear guidance for implementation. The project results will be prepared in various publication formats. Options and recommendations for action are planned for political decision-makers in order to adapt the regulatory framework at various levels (federal, state and local). Practice-oriented guidelines will compile best-practice examples and concrete action instructions for stakeholders in the construction industry and local governments. All publications will be published on this website and made available for download.
A key conference is also planned at the end of the project. In addition to political representatives, experts and decision-makers from business, science, administration and civil society will be invited to this conference. The working groups in particular will present the results of the networking and synthesis based on the solutions developed and various publications, thereby providing further momentum for the transfer. Implementers and practitioners from the industry will also be involved in the joint discussion with the conference participants.
Working groups and stakeholder advisory board
WG 1: Building materials, construction and energy
The working group “Building materials, construction and energy” (WG 1) is dedicated to technical innovations with a focus on individual buildings. It will analyse existing obstacles for more affordable housing and how costs could potentially be reduced – for example through serial and modular building, increased use of digital tools and circular business models. There is a particular focus on reviewing existing standards in residential construction and simplifying building regulations.
WG 2: Urban and neighbourhood development
The working group “Urban and neighbourhood development” (WG 2) focuses on issues relating to the requirements and potential of integrated neighbourhood development. The overall aim is to discuss innovations and instruments at neighborhood level that can contribute to greater affordability, to identify obstacles to implementation and to develop possible approaches to overcoming them. Particular attention is paid to instruments that strengthen partnership-based co-development, agility and self-development of neighbourhoods and promote an integrated solution approach of urban neighbourhood development.
WG 3: Transformation and implementation strategies
The task of working group “Transformation and implementation strategies” (WG 3) is to work closely with the other two working groups to provide impulses for the successful transfer of existing and future solutions into practice. WG 3 therefore reviews the scalability, transferability and economic potential of the approaches developed by WG 1 and WG 2.
Stakeholder advisory board
The advisory board accompanies and comments on the project work and acts as a sounding board. At the start of the project, the members were also involved in narrowing down the topics to be addressed and
More about the stakeholder advisory board
How do we differ from or align with other projects?
There are several projects in Germany related to construction and living — whether focused on affordable housing, sustainable building, or neighborhood development. These projects often overlap thematically and share similar goals and target groups. However, they differ in regional focus and priorities. The advantage of multiple similar projects lies in potential synergies: When different stakeholders promote comparable action plans and recommendations, it strengthens their position in discussions with political decision-makers and emphasizes the urgency of overcoming existing obstacles. Findings from regional or local projects can provide valuable insights for scaling solutions to other cities and states, fostering broader discussions and implementation. Additionally, the diversity of projects offers a wide range of ideas and tools tailored to different target groups.
1 „Bauen und Wohnen in Deutschland 2024“, Pestel Institute