Baugruppe ist super!
Contemporary Housing – inspiration from Berlin
What kind of housing to choose? How to build? What and how to share?
BAUGRUPPE (in German “bauen” – to build, “Gruppe” – group) is a term for a concept of building and living based on the individual initiative of mini-builders and architects. An architect and a group of individuals cooperate directly to build a house, usually an urban apartment building that is adapted to the specific needs of the clients as well as to their common ideas about shared spaces and functions of the building.
The “Baugruppe ist super!” exhibition presents the most interesting examples of Baugruppe projects carried out by renowned Berlin architects: BARarchitekten, fatkoehl Architekten, HEIDE & VON BECKERATH, ifau and Jesko Fezer, Kaden + Partner and zanderrotharchitekten. With more than 3000 apartments and 200 houses constructed over the past ten years, Berlin is the European leader in terms of Baugruppe projects. The exhibition examines experimental projects that have developed new solutions and strategies under the condition of rising living costs and have been implemented on often difficult and sometimes seemingly unattractive sites for housing development companies. This model is also widely-spread in Freiburg (1900 apartments) or in Hamburg (more than 1600 apartments). The Project “R 50 – cohousing” was nominated for the Mies van der Rohe Award 2015.
What differentiates Baugruppe projects from ordinary homes is primarily the dialogue between the architect and the client (a group of mini-builders) during the design process – every project is unique and reflects the dynamics and the requirements of the group. A project can be initiated by an architect or the members of the group, the future inhabitants of the house, who buy a plot of land. After that the architect and the Baugruppe start organising common meetings to openly discuss the design of the building. When an agreement is reached, a residential structure is built. The Baugruppe members become owners of their individually adapted apartments. What is special about Baugruppe projects is the new kinds of neighbourhood relationships, shared spaces such as meeting rooms and shared terraces, and a number of sustainable design solutions. The project does not necessarily include constructing new housing; many projects are based on the renovation or conversion of existing buildings.
“The utilization of unused building land will stimulate the creation of a compact and efficient city, which is in concord with the current urban planning goals,” says the architect Vladimír Fialka from the Planning and Development Institute of the City of Prague. In his opinion, Baugruppe members are very often committed people who care about where they live, which in turn enhances the quality of neighbourhood relations and creates a stable social environment.
The “Baugruppe ist super!” exhibition will feature presentations by Berlin architects and a “Baugruppen-Casting” – a workshop led by guest experts from Germany. In addition, on certain weekdays, the curators and architects of the exhibition will be present at the exhibition to answer visitors’ questions and to react to their suggestions. Moreover, they will analyse the potential for Baugruppe projects in the Czech Republic. The exhibition is co-organised by the Prague Institute of Planning and Development and has received financial support from the Czech-German Future Funds, the Czech Architecture Foundation, the City of Prague and the Goethe-Institut in Prague and the Ministry of Culture of the Czech Republic and takes place during the 20th anniversary of the Prague – Berlin City Partnership in 2015.
- Our aim was to introduce the houses of Baugruppe.00:00:00.471
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- This phenomenon originated in Berlin about ten years ago.00:00:04.957
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- The point is that a group of constructors and an architect get together00:00:09.779
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- and they build a residential house.00:00:14.470
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- It has become a very popular model of building flats and houses in Berlin,00:00:18.655
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- there are about two hundred projects and three thousand flats.00:00:27.006
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- Very interesting experimental buildings come to existence there.00:00:33.054
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- We wanted to present them at the exhibition,00:00:38.931
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- we selected six Berlin projects with distinct features.00:00:44.729
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- At some of the projects the participation of00:00:54.000
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- the occupants and the architect is very obvious,00:00:59.725
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- because the process of communication00:01:03.166
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- and presenting the architectonic project00:01:05.637
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- was relatively intensive and took a long time.00:01:08.334
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- They even created their own methodology of00:01:11.170
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- questionnaires how to project the house.00:01:14.622
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- Another project presented at the exhibition joins living with working.00:01:18.603
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- The architects and their friends not only reside in the house,00:01:26.939
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- but there are also their studios, a café00:01:32.521
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- and a small experimental space or a gallery.00:01:35.507
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- Another projects are interesting because of their typology,00:01:40.081
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- we present a seven-storey wooden house for example.00:01:45.902
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- It is the only seven-storey wooden house in Europe at the moment,00:01:51.092
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- because only three or four-storey wooden houses are usually permitted00:01:57.720
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- but they were granted a special dispensation.00:02:04.317
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- All these characteristics we present on 1:20 scale models,00:02:07.733
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- they are really huge, almost two metres big.00:02:19.054
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- Another way of presentation are the drawings over there.00:02:24.229
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- They show diagrams of the relations,00:02:28.480
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- how the housing construction works with a developer,00:02:32.278
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- how family houses construction works and how Baugruppe works,00:02:35.803
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- when the mediatory link of the developer is omitted.00:02:39.578
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- The money which Baugruppe saves on the developer's share00:02:46.362
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- can be used for a joint space they agree on,00:02:55.392
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- for example a clubroom, a rooftop terrace,00:03:00.917
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- a guest flat or a sauna.00:03:04.722
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- We also created a handbook answering00:03:09.264
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- step by step questions about Baugruppe,00:03:12.559
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- what is the legal status of Baugruppe,00:03:17.956
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- how is Baugruppe financed,00:03:20.834
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- how to agree on, where to get hold of an estate.00:03:22.577
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- There is also a model calculation of Baugruppe.00:03:29.148
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- How much approximately would Baugruppe cost in the Czech Republic.00:03:33.721
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- In the back room we created an archive with00:03:37.163
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- documentation of the six Berlin projects.00:03:40.695
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- It's an expert part of the exhibition with ground plans00:03:46.355
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- and all the complex plan documentation00:03:53.530
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- which the amateur viewers will probably not appreciate.00:03:57.391
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- There are also details of frontages,00:04:01.271
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- windows or some construction tricks00:04:03.374
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- which are interesting.00:04:06.683
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- The archive size allowed us to present everything at the exhibition00:04:08.919
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- without selecting just some of the project documentation.00:04:14.778
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- A very important part of the exhibition is00:04:22.285
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- that we try to approach the exhibition as a platform for networking people00:04:25.256
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- who are interested in the topic of contemporary housing.00:04:30.620
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- So we had a kind of Baugruppe casting,00:04:44.299
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- a workshop within which we spoke to00:04:46.821
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- financial experts, real estate agents and interested people00:04:52.211
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- about Baugruppe, what could a shared housing involve,00:04:58.265
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- where is the boundary between the joint and the individual and00:05:05.906
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- whether Baugruppe has any potential in the Czech Republic.00:05:14.204
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- The exhibition should function as a platform,00:05:18.377
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- there are guided tours every week,00:05:21.649
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- many lectures and workshops.00:05:25.074
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- One of the lectures will be given by Florian Köhl,00:05:28.742
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- he will speak about his Baugruppe.00:05:32.684
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- His model is presented at the exhibition,00:05:36.366
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- it is interesting because John Bok co-operated on it.00:05:38.912
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- He is a well-known German artist and a performer who00:05:43.535
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- also makes installations from found materials00:05:48.064
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- and he also lives in Florian's baugruppe.00:05:50.808
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- When Florian was sending us the work model of his house,00:05:53.035
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- John Bok came to his studio and when he saw00:05:57.283
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- the interesting grid in which architectonic models hovered00:06:00.869
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- he said he would complete it somehow.00:06:07.281
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- He completed it with various materials including00:06:10.133
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- packages from painkillers, modeling clay and various plastic objects00:06:14.648
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- and he created a kind of cosmos or a personal statement expressing00:06:22.218
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- his feelings about living in Baugruppe and how the whole process originated.00:06:25.919
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- It's an individual artistic intervention at the exhibition.00:06:30.760