
Big cities of the future: What can be done about the housing shortage?
Unused space
It is currently difficult for project developers to find building plots in city centers. However, there is a lot of unused space in places that may seem unusual at first glance: for example, on the roofs of supermarkets, parking garages, and office buildings. Even existing residential buildings can be expanded further. According to a study by the Technical University of Darmstadt and the Pestel Institute in Hanover, 2.3 to 2.7 million new apartments could be created in major German cities if this construction potential is used wisely. Up to 1.5 million residential units could be created simply by adding additional floors to residential buildings. In the future, it is therefore possible that our major cities will continue to grow skyward.
The architecture of the future
When designing new buildings, architects and urban planners are increasingly focusing on sustainable building materials, networking, and intelligent architecture. The buildings are as energy self-sufficient as possible and solve space problems in creative ways. Digitalization is also becoming increasingly important in this context. It is important to look for solutions that can be implemented quickly. Currently, long construction times are often the reason why many planned projects stall and are not completed on time. Another residential trend comes from Asia: residential buildings are designed so that only a few rooms, such as bedrooms or bathrooms, are rented to individuals. The remaining rooms are available to the community, but can be rented individually for specific periods of time. In Germany, the amount of living space per capita is increasing. This is mainly due to the growing number of single-person households. However, it is questionable whether singles will want to continue living in shared apartments after their studies.
Fewer cars?
Residential buildings are not the only thing that will change in the cities of the future. Road traffic will also change in the coming years. While many people may not want to share a kitchen with strangers, the situation is different when it comes to cars. Car-sharing models are becoming increasingly popular. If there are fewer cars in the future, parking spaces in large cities could be converted into living space. However, it will be some time before this actually happens. This is because the number of registered cars in cities such as Berlin is currently still rising.
In the long term, there is only one solution to the housing problem in large cities: build a lot and focus on intelligent planning.
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