Former Berlin Mayor Klaus “Wowi” Wowereit’s claim in 2004 that Berlin is “arm aber sexy,” poor but sexy, set the tone for a post-reunification milieu where cheap rents, radically changing demographics, and a burgeoning art and music scene set the stage. Bogged down in large infrastructure projects, such as the long delayed and over-budgeted new airport, Wowereit was ousted missing the cue for the needs of everyday citizens, that is, the urgent need for new affordable housing and more basic, a contemporary civic empowerment. Increasing friction between market-driven speculation and the need for affordable housing was rising in a context where 30,000 new apartments were needed within a legislative period of five years with a yearly demand of 6,000. Berlin, as a growing metropolis, needed and still needs housing after much commercial and cultural expansion. The opportunity lies in creating density in a diffuse multi-centered and multi-layered city. What new sustainable typologies can give form to a new residential urban landscape? How can current legislation be instrumentalized to support these initiatives or rather how could legislation adopt new thinking?
In this way the Harvard Abroad Studio Berlin aimed at provoking new thinking for generating housing, which challenges the status quo. The political and speculative climate at the time suggested a proactive one, that is, where planners, architects, and developers propose housing solutions that can interface in an historical city, but with no direct precedents or master planning to guide them—anticipating and provoking new experimental ideas for an immediate and urgent future. What could be new models for these typologies where speculation is given the opportunity for re-mapping economy, zoning, and density and as negotiated not pre-ordained?
The spring 2015 semester brought Harvard Graduate School of Design students to Berlin to participate in a studio led by Frank Barkow of Barkow Leibinger and Arno Brandlhuber of Brandlhuber+. The studio, entitled “Poor but Sexy: Berlin, The New Communal,” was accompanied by two seminars: “Plattenbau vs. the New Communal, Mass Housing, Alternative Dwelling Models, A Theory of Shared Spaces in Germany” led by Niklas Maak and “The Urban Architecture of Berlin: From Schinkel to the Present” led by Fritz Neumeyer. The studio took place in Berlin from January 31st until April 29th.
© Harvard Abroad Studio Berlin
© Harvard Abroad Studio Berlin
© Harvard Abroad Studio Berlin
© Harvard Abroad Studio Berlin
© Harvard Abroad Studio Berlin