The ‘Urban Housing Lab’ studies answers to the pressing challenges for future urban habitation – shifting demographics, societal segregation, and climate change. It discusses strategies for inclusive, cohesive habitation and relational coexistence and caters to the proliferating tendencies towards civic engagement, participation and sharing. With its roots in practice the lab pursues a design-led approach on deeply intertwined tracks – design research, publication and curation, and education.

Anticipating multi-faceted uncertainties, the lab is deeply interested in investigating hybrid typologies open to responsive programming beyond housing and new agencies of decision-making. Seeing architecture as open-ended process, the lab aims for spatial and operational forms that are responsive to far-reaching demographic, technological, and societal transformations. Respective concepts for an exemplary ‘Future Hybrid High-Rise Commune’ will be shown at the Venice Architecture Biennale 2021‘How will we live together’, as part of the Singapore Pavilion ‘to gather: The Architecture of Relationships’.

Drawing connections between social and environmental sustainability, the lab also investigates means to de-carbonize both construction and operation of buildings – with concepts for climate-responsive layouts, hybrid materiality, flexibility and circularity. Engaging with forward looking design thinking and decision-making processes the lab pursues the potentials afforded by computational tools – to simulate climatic comfort, to conduct life-cycle-analysis and to measure the resilience of designs to respond to changing requirements and urges for participation.

Conducting integrative typological research for seminal publications such as the ‘Floor Plan Manual Housing’ the ‘Urban Housing Lab’ analyses innovative design solutions and contextualizes them in a holistic narrative on the essential historic, technological, and societal shifts in urban habitation.

The ‘Urban Housing Lab’ seeks interdisciplinary cooperation to investigate integrative answers beyond thematic and institutional silos and collaborates with expertise in engineering, computation, and social design fields. Curating events like the  ‘Future Urban Habitation Symposium’ in Singapore and editing respective scholarly publications for Wiley the lab pushes for cross-disciplinary debates on the transformative agendas it works on – ‘Inclusive Urbanism’, ‘Typology for Building Communities’, ‘Adaptive & Responsive Habitation’, and ‘New Tools, new Approaches’.

PROJECTS, selection 


 

1995-2001 

 

Public Housing in Berlin-Weissensee (Design) 

18 Public Housing buildings (100 flats) in Berlin Treptow (Design, Realization) 

Housing- and Office building in Berlin-Wilmersdorf (Design, Realization) 

 

all at Autzen Reimers Architects BDA, Berlin 

Architecture Designer 

………………………………………………. 

Urban Planning Competition Landsberger Allee, Berlin 

 

Heide Von Beckerath Architects, Berlin, Germany 

Architecture Designer 

………………………………………………. 

Town Hall and Cultural Centre Ijsselstein, Netherlands, (Design, Realization) 

Religious Centre in Troina, Sicilia (Design) 

Corporate identity Facade for Randstad Uitzendbureau, NL (Design) 

 

all at Van Berkel en Bos/UN Studio, Amsterdam, Netherlands 

Architecture Designer 

………………………………………………. 

Revitalisation Railway Station Frankfurt/Oder (Design, Realization) 

Revitalisation Railway Station Berlin-Ostbahnhof (Design, Realization) 

Expo Hall 8/9, Expo 2000 Hannover (Design Competition) 

 

all at Becker Gewers Kühn Kühn Architects BDA, Berlin, Germany 

Architecture Designer 

………………………………………………. 

 

Since 2001, selection 

HAHOH Architects, Co-founder, Director Architecture Design 

 

Design Competition  

Art Museum Bozen, Italy, with Christian Stiller 

 

Design Competition  

Revitalization London-Southwark, Europan  „In-Between Cities“ 

 

Awarded design competition / Design Study 

Fremtidens Foreningshus – Design Study for a standardized Community Center 

For: Danish Foundation F. Culture & Sport Facilities  

 

Design, Feasibility study 

Granary Bremen-Harbour, Bremen, Germany – Adaptive reuse 

For: Senate of Economy & Harbours,Freie Hansestadt Bremen 

With: ASP Stadt-& Landschaftsplaner, Degraeuwe Consulting, G&D Eventcomm 

 

Awarded design competition / Design Study 

Camp Reinsehlen, Conversion of former British Army Tank Training Camp 

Masterplan & conversion concept  

For: Camp-Reinsehlen-Gbr 

With: ASP Stadt-& Landschaftsplaner 

 

Urban Planning Competition  

Parkquartier Hamburg – Friedrichsberg, Hamburg, Germany 

with/for: Fink Jocher Architekten 

 

Urban Planning Competition  

Unipark Nonntal Salzburg 

With: b+m+s landscape architects 

 

Design / Realization 

Berlin North – Art Exhibition Hamburger Bahnhof, Berlin 

Collaborative exhibition design with artists  

for: Sparwasser Hq, Berlin 

 

Awarded Design Competition  

Chicago Prize 2005 ‘Chicago Watertank’, Chicago, USA 

with: Mike Null & Hoon Cho 

Honorable Mention 

 

Project Development & Participatory Design  

Pappelallee 25, Berlin, Cooperative Housing project  

Clients: Private housing cooperative 

 

Project Development & Participatory Design  

Schliemannstr. 24, Berlin, Cooperative Housing project,  

Clients: Private housing cooperative 

 

Design, Realization 

Multifamily-House in Zell a.H. – Low-Energy-Standard 

Client: Private 

 

Design 

Kopenhagener Str.77, Berlin, Conversion 

Client: Private 

 

Design 

Haus Ahornzweig, Essen, Conversion 

Client: Private 

 

Design Competition  

Kindergarten Stadtpark Wien, Vienna 

 

Design Competition  

City Museum Kassel, Kassel 

 

Design 

Conversion Viereckweg 20 & 22, Berlin-Buch 

Client: Private 

 

Design Study 

Single-family House Hager, Affordable housing in timber 

Client: Private 

 

Design, Realization 

Multifamily-House with commercial units, Berlin-Treptow 

Client: Private 

 

Design, Realization

Conversion Multifamily-House, Berlin-Neukoelln 

(Multi-generation living) 

Client: Private