The housing market is under immense pressure with skyrocketing rents, rising property prices, and a particularly tight situation in metropolitan areas and for low-income earners. How can we overcome this crisis and achieve affordable housing? Is it a matter of politics, or do technical solutions also hold the key?
Stefanie Lütteke: Taking Germany as an example, the government aimed to build 400,000 new apartments per year in a large-scale initiative. However, this construction boom desired by the state fell victim to the well-known issues of rising interest rates and ever-increasing bureaucracy. The causes are complex and offer many opportunities to point the finger at others. We should rather focus on scaling existing and proven efficient solutions.
Simon Dietzfelbinger: To keep costs under control despite the difficult economic situation, higher efficiency is the key to success. Serial construction and renovation is the method of choice. Despite the advantages of modular construction, the industry is still too hesitant in its approach. Modular construction should be used extensively across more projects. It should be the basis for design. Many people still see modularization as the death knell for architecture, associating it with clunky and dull mass-produced goods and prefabricated buildings.
Which advantages does modular construction offer?
Simon Dietzfelbinger: Modularization could speed up the assembly process at construction sites essentially in future. The actual production process will take place under ideal conditions in industrial halls, supported by digital methods and robotics, achieving highest quality and fewer lost labor hours on site due to snagging defects. Additionally, the houses built in this way comply with all building regulations thanks to the high degree of standardization, leading to faster acceptance and further time savings.
Stefanie Lütteke: It works like this: a building is described as a product, comparable to a car. This product is broken down into modules, such as the technical center, façade or sanitary cell. The repetition of these subsystems is utilized, resulting in modules that are then industrially prefabricated. Instead of joining bricks and mortar on the construction site for months in all weathers, entire façades, wall panels, and even the building technology are produced in factory halls with millimeter precision and consistent quality. Increasing quality is still one of the main issues on every construction site. For the workers on the construction site, this means a considerable reduction in workload. The more work steps are carried out in advance in the hall, the easier it is to work on-site. This is also part of the solution to the ever-worsening shortage of skilled workers.
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