Let's Talk About Cities #6 - Self-initiated Housing

Definition of Baugruppen

Simone Kläser defined it as a “collective term for all construction activities that are neither carried out by a single private builder nor initiated by a public or private developer.” 1(translated from german) (In Arch+)

Characteristics Baugruppe

In order to give an overview and better insight to the variety of self-organized forms of living that all are described by the term Baugruppe, Kläser developed different groups to describe them. (1 ibid)

Professionally initiated groups

According to Kläser, their main motive is to reduce the amount of money they spend, another driving force is the belief that they can afford more and more fitting apartments if they come together in a self-initiated group for housing.

Special interest groups

Kläser argues that this group shares a certain idea of how they want to live and put an emphasis on a certain topic, e.g. to build in a sustainable manner with special regards to energy efficiency and ecologically friendly materials.  

Groups of a certain life situation

Within this group, Kläser sees the organisation of living together more in the focus than the actual building of the dwellings. It could e.g be that elderly live together that share certain needs but don't want to live in a care home.  

Multigenerational groups

Within those multigenerational groups,  elderly and youngsters are oftentimes co-living. The younger people are paying relatively little but helping with daily-life needs of the elderly.

Community group

Those groups aim to contribute to the city by not only creating housing, but specifically taking on functions that fill gaps in social or cultural welfare. This could e.g be to give a certain amount of apartments to marginalized groups.

History of co-living and self-initiated housing

It may be argued that the concepts of self-initiated housing and co-living are as old as civilization itself. By their definitions they certainly apply to housing structures in early tribal and nomadic societies. We’ll concentrate here on their modern origins and use in apartment buildings.

One of the earliest examples of co-living is Centralbygningen in Copenhagen, built between 1903 and 1905. It is a 5-storey building with 26 apartments and is an independent part of a larger complex. It used to have a swimming area, a central kitchen, a cold storage space and a washing room in the cellar as well as staff and food elevators to the apartments. A similar concept was realised with Hemgården in Stockholm in 1906. Its purpose was to achieve lower costs, higher standards and more time for the residents – especially for the women, who it was hoped would therefore have more time for employed work as well as caring for their families. As was written in a newspaper for bourgeois women at the time:

“The worrying rise in living costs, which threatens to turn especially our capital into a for less well-off people near existentially dangerous society in which to dwell, must finally produce a counter-movement of the beleaguered bourgeoisie which to some degree hinders an immodest capitalist-rule, a way of life misdirected towards desire for luxury, and a wretched city council from further embittering the existence of the small wage earners with the shadows of economic concerns. One such counter-movement is the initiation of the central kitchen idea, which has its origins in the practical America.”

The above are examples of co-living houses or kollektivhus, examples which were followed in different ways throughout the last one hundred years but lack the aspect of participation in planning. It is more difficult to find the modern origins of self-initiated housing. As mentioned in the episode about Red Vienna there were housing initiatives borne out of desperation during and after the First World War, but those were rather detached houses or row houses. Self-initiated housing in the form of apartment buildings appears to stem out of several historical movements and sociocultural paradigm shifts.

There are the housing co-operatives, which have had world-wide success. In Austria and Germany they are especially prominent, making up 15% and 10% of the respective house markets. Their origins date to the second half of the 19th century, as co-operatives were founded to supply the working class with affordable housing. After a new law lowered the liabilities of co-operatives and conditions for loans improved in 1889, they became more viable and grew in numbers. After a stagnation during the First World War, they became prominent again in the 1920’s before inflation and financial crises again made their implementation difficult. 

One difference between housing co-operatives and self-initiated housing is in the possibility for participation: housing co-operatives are often larger associations, sometimes very large, that build housing in which people may live provided they have bought a membership share in the association. There isn’t necessarily active participation and self-initiative in decisions of what and how to build but rather representatives, chosen by members, who run the association. Another difference is the principal purpose of the model chosen: housing co-operatives were formed mainly as an economical counter-movement to the unsustainable housing market. Self-initiated housing models, while often cheaper long-term than other options on the housing market, can have many different purposes and goals e.g. ecological sustainability, individualised spaces and services or support structures for marginalised groups.

The roots of self-initiated housing are also found in the communes and shared accommodations popularised in the counterculture movements of the 1960s. Examples of those range from squatters, Israeli kibbutzim and flat-sharing to ecovillages, ashrams and other Utopian communities. But unlike such initiatives, self-initiated housing groups are not principally driven by political or cultural aims and do not seek to establish communities separated from mainstream society, rather they seek to be integrated with their surroundings and are driven by pragmatism. Their proponents and participants are also of another, more mainstream character than the counterculture movements in terms of socio-economic class, age and culture.

More recent examples of projects comparable to self-initiated housing are the alternative models of the 80s known in German as Wohnprojekte. The word project in this case seems to denote an experimental form, suggestive of the fact that these were still part of a phenomenon peripheral to and not yet accepted by the mainstream. These include less radical successors of the counterculture squatters and other communal initiatives that still sought self-governed and collective ways of living, but also projects in which architects and planners brought the end users into the process. A broader discussion on participation in planning, its virtues and its discontents, would lend useful context to this entire episode but also go beyond its scope – so we‘ll leave it for a later episode.

Austrian architect Ottokar Uhl concerned himself very much with participative planning. In 1968 he won the competition to design a residential project with 70 units in Hollabrunn and, inspired by the Dutch S.A.R. (Stichting Architecten Research), involved the future residents in the planning and realisation of the buildings. The principle was to employ a high degree of industrialised methods in the construction of the load-bearing systems of the building, while leaving room for individualization of the rest.

Roughly ten years later Uhl was contacted and hired by a group of young families. They wanted him to help them design a house for them to live in together and they wanted to have a say in all decisions in the process. As the name of the project – Wohnen mit Kindern (Living with Children) – implies, the aim was a building especially suitable for families with children. It has two playrooms, workshops and a table-tennis room. It was also a further experiment in flexibility, allowing for the adaptation of walls and even ceilings to specific needs or wants.

The Sargfabrik is the largest and perhaps best-known example of self-initiated housing in Austria. Der Verein für integrative Lebensgestaltung (in English The Association for integrated Lifestyles) was formed in the mid 1980s by a group of people looking to find an alternative to the expensive housing market focused on traditional family units. The architects, the collective BKK-2, are themselves members of the association which together planned, realised and are running the project. It was finished in 1996 and has an abundance of shared spaces such as roof gardens, a swimming facility, a daycare and a restaurant, some even open to the public.

Two German cities are considered pioneers in applying the concept of self-initiated housing at an urban planning scale. In the 1990s Tübingen and Freiburg began realising urban developments incorporating the concept of self-initiated housing, but they did so quite differently from one-another.
In Tübingen the initiative came from the city government. A former military barracks area was to be developed and the planners envisioned a dense and mixed-use city of short paths and small lots. Developers weren’t as interested in small lots with mixed-use programmes, so the prospect of small, private associations developing the housing appeared to be a great alternative. They would also prove to achieve up to 20% cheaper apartment prices at similar or higher standards, making it possible for more people to own their dwellings and achieving architectural as well as demographic diversity.
The initiative in Freiburg came from the citizens. There, as in Tübingen, French troops moved out of the barracks they had inhabited since the Second World War and in 1992 the first ideas for how to use the area were formed by citizens. In ‘94 the civic association Forum Vauban e.V. was created. They managed to massively influence the planning of the area in accordance with their goal of an ecologically sustainable development: It has car-free neighbourhoods, has the first multi-family passive house in Germany and self-initiated housing associations were prioritised before investors, leading to further projects with an ecological profile.

The examples set by Tübingen and Freiburg have since been followed elsewhere in Germany and abroad. In Hamburg, where self-initiated housing associations grew out of squatter movements in the 80s, there has since 2003 been an agency of the city planning department dedicated to self-initiated housing. They provide advice on procedure and official funding for associations, help in the search of sites and allocate land belonging to the city. It is a goal of the city government that 20% of the land in the possession of the city is allocated to self-initiated housing projects.
In Austria there is the Initiative Gemeinsam Bauen & Wohnen (Initiative Collaborative Building & Living), an association which since 2009 supports people and groups interested in collaborative housing projects and advocates for better conditions for the success of such projects. There is an increasing number of projects being planned and some very interesting ones finished in Vienna, one of which – LiSA – we’ll take a closer look at.

Examples

As the City of Vienna states, so-called “Urban Breeding Grounds” are crucial when it comes to liveliness in a neighbourhood and on a bigger scale in a city. 5 Being part of creating those places together has become more and more important in the past. However in recent years, participation no longer only plays a role when it comes to designing public space but also taking part in one’s housing. According to the City of Vienna, fostering possibilities of participation in different scales will increase the feeling of community. They even compare those increased possibilities of participation with “the village being brought into the city” and counteracting the tendency of emigration as the people can on the one hand be part of designing apartments that really fit their needs and on the other hand have a strong sense of community. 5 (ibid) 

LiSA

There are examples of self-initiated housing that go further back in history, like the previously mentioned Sargfabrik. However, as Aspern Seestadt itself is really interesting as it is an entirely new part of Vienna, a project that was developed there - LiSA - will be discussed in depth. Something that makes the self-initiated housing projects that were realised at Seestadt Aspern stand out, was that a plot was specifically reserved for that purpose from the beginning and at the same time used for the first self-initiated housing competition in Vienna. Finally, five self-initiated housing groups were selected from a competition and could realise their building on the plot, cooperating from the beginning and developing the shared inner yard. Besides LiSA, JAspern, B.R.O.T, Pegasus and Seestern were selected. 6 When visiting the project LiSA (Leben in der Seestadt Aspern) at guided tours that take place at events like “Open house” or even looking at their website, one comprehends that besides community living and engagement, ecological and cultural aspects also play a major role in their self-initiated housing project. 7 They put an emphasis on diversity, equality, solidarity and protecting the environment as well as its resources. Furthermore, they strive for a consensus within their association, with transparency and an open dialogue as a given. 8 Internally, they are organized in different working groups, each being responsible for a certain topic, like finances, communication or the shared spaces. Regarding the shared spaces, LiSA offers a variety. Among those are rehearsal rooms, a workshop room, a sauna as well as a food cooperation and a guest room. 9 Regarding the architecture of the building, all flats are oriented north-south with access to the apartments through the south-facing balconies. As the flats are accessed through the balconies and lead to people meeting their neighbours more often, encounters and a feeling of community is strengthened. However, when visiting the building, one can see that the design might have been too open for some of the residents as various barriers have been placed in front of the large windows to prevent people that are passing by the apartments to look into them. LiSA was built in 2014/15 and the residents could move in at the end of 2015. In total, there are 42 residential units, 2 shared flats for elderly and 6 commercial units. 10

Different financing/ownership models

Regarding the legal system, one can differentiate between two forms of self-initiated housing: ownership model (german: Bauherrenmodell) and developer model (Bauträgermodell). 4  

The ownership model is a group of people that are taking  the responsibility for everything that is connected to the development of the building, both legally and economically. For the execution of the building process, professionals are consulted and hired. After the actual construction, they can choose between being share-owners of the building or of actual apartments. They also have to decide how to manage the community places. Oftentimes, an association is established that manages or rents out common rooms. 4 (ibid) 

The developer model is very different to the ownership model, initiated housing development that can be qualified as such are groups that decide to come together but to cooperate with a developer. Self-initiated housing groups often face very high financial risks and the whole development requires a high amount of time. When they decide to cooperate with a developer, the financial pressure is not as high and therefore often also is a lot easier and faster to realise. However, those types of self-initiated housing groups also have less possibilities to engage and take an active part in the development process. Another difference between those two forms is what happens when a flat gets vacant. In the ownership model, it is given back to the association and they can sell the shares again or rent it out. In the developer model, the owners of the apartments have the right to sell their apartment when they move out, with the exception of when preemption has been agreed on. This difference is crucial, only preemption can counteract speculation. 4 (ibid) 

What are the major challenges of self-initiated housing?

Financing

One of the main challenges for self-initiated housing groups is to assemble the needed money in a short amount of time. Coming back to the example of LiSA, a developer helped them to acquire the land and develop the building, when the building was finished, the association bought it for 10,5 million euros. 11 
 

Allocation of land

Another challenge for self-initiated housing groups is to find a proper plot for their project as they’re in a competition to all the other developers that not only have the means but also more expertise when it comes to acquisition of land. 4 Therefore, a new form of land allocation for self-initiated housing was established in Vienna and a first competition conducted in Seestadt Aspern in 2011. Within this competition, the groups that wanted to develop a self-initiated housing project could tender their concepts supported by other basic information, however didn’t need to submit a finished project. When deciding who gets to develop their project, the City of Vienna puts the main focus on the concept of the project itself as well as on the stability of the group and how well it fits at the site. 4 (ibid) Finally, the five previously mentioned groups won the competition and could develop their project in Seestadt Aspern. After this first self-initiated housing competition, more of those were conducted in Vienna. 4 (ibid)

Conflicts

According to a paper that was published after having had a series of workshops that were dealing with topics related to and relevant for self-initiated housing, conflicts within Baugruppen are to be expected as many different people come and work very closely together, might have financial and time pressure and also a lot of expectations. However, as self-initiated housing groups often show a high degree of organisation, they are in most cases also capable of solving conflicts internally. If the conflicts are becoming too complex or show a high degree of escalation, external moderators and mediators can be consulted. 12

A critique of self-initiated housing

Self-initiated housing associations appear to be an exciting solution for affordable and innovative housing at a time in which rents and prices are increasing rapidly in most larger cities as social housing has made way for investor-driven developments.. But there are also questionable aspects of their emergence.

The obvious ones are economic aspects: although cheaper than comparable apartments on the market, in most cities even a potential 20% reduction relative to market prices renders them out of reach for a large part of the population. Additionally, the reduction in price is paid for in time and energy spent in the participative process, which is also something not available to many. On a larger economical scale, most self-initiated housing associations consist of private properties rather than rental apartments, furthering the privatisation of housing and in cases of subsidisation doing so with the support of public administration and tax money which also benefits the banks enabling the projects through lending. This raises a political question of the role of the state in the provision of housing and points to a neoliberal answer: there is no such thing as society. Only individuals, who must become entrepreneurs.

And so there are social aspects to consider: self-initiated housing is mainly an option for a limited group of people seeking self-realisation and finding it through collectivity. Rather than build a villa outside the city, members of self-initiated housing associations seek the individuality of a villa in urban space. They bring with them a certain financial and social capital seen by city authorities and businesses as desirable, as they contribute to urbanity and thus the image and profitability of the city. That makes their arrival a threat to the socioeconomic structure of existing areas, but one with a friendlier face than the investor-driven developments more readily associated with gentrification. No wonder, then, that self-initiated housing is becoming more and more incorporated by authorities: they can paint a picture of innovative and participative planning while minimising their own share of the responsibility for the provision of housing and for city planning, increasing the value of their cities while furthering individualisation and privatisation.

There are less common alternative models, such as the German Mietshäuser Syndikat or its Austrian equivalent HabiTAT. They work on a basis of non-profit collective property, meaning the buildings of the housing associations that are part of the organisation are collectively owned by each housing association and the organisation through a separate company, in which the members of the association and the organisation are company members with voting rights. That way speculation is stopped, as the organisation can veto sales. There is also a solidarity transfer, with more established and financially stronger projects supporting newer and financially weaker projects. The residents of the houses rent their apartments, which is part of the reason the projects don’t receive support and subsidies from public authorities: the goal of the Syndikat and HabiTAT is to achieve cheap living costs and decommodify housing, not generating private property.

Motives for people to join/initiate a Baugruppe

In the paper “Self-build communities: the rationale and experiences of group-build (Baugruppen) housing development in Germany'', Hamiduddin and Gallent argue that affordability, collective identity and communitarianism are the main drivers for people engaging in a self-initiated housing. 2 Whilst cost-efficiency might seem like an obvious reason to many, customisation also is an important factor when deciding to initiate or join a group of self-initiated housing. On the one hand, people engaging in a Baugruppe oftentime share a certain interest and therefore are prone to have a stronger bond with each other. On the other hand, initiating housing can be a very long process, meeting each other on a regular basis. This commitment might lead to a stronger identification with the dwelling. That leads to the third main motive they argue for in their article, communitarianism. In the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, communitarianism is described as “the idea that human identities are largely shaped by different kinds of constitutive communities (or social relations) and that this conception of human nature should inform our moral and political judgments as well as policies and institutions.” 3 Hamiduddin and Gallent argue that when people come together and create housing, it is not only about “needing the product” (the dwelling) itself, but also a communitarian project that brings communities together in the development process and, in doing so, helps foster social cohesion. 2 Furthermore, they mention the “DIY-factor” (satisfaction of having applied or learning new practical skills) as well as the wish for having housing that was designed uniquely for their needs. 2 (ibid)