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07/07/2023 | Pressemitteilung

Housing construction in cities: there would be room

An interdisciplinary research team has shown that there is an enormous amount of space available in growing cities. They can be used to cover large parts of the demand for housing and other uses. However, it does not always have to be the classic building plot. In Hamburg alone, there are more than 700 hectares of ground-level parking lots that are only partially used.

Image: University of Kassel.

"In European cities, buildings and spaces have repeatedly fallen out of use due to social changes. However, the drivers of this urban obsolescence have not yet been systematically investigated," says Prof. Stefan Rettich, Head of the Department of Urban Design at the University of Kassel. "Today, the megatrends of digitalization, the transport revolution and changes in religiosity are having an impact on urban functions, putting a variety of building types under pressure to be used."

These could form a decisive resource for the inner development of growing cities - for uses oriented towards the common good and affordable housing, for a more resilient design of the districts and their adaptation to climate change as well as for the multitude of new functions that are pushing into the cities, not least for new infrastructures that are required for the traffic turnaround and for the supply of renewable energies.

For example, a project report names petrol stations, churches, parking lots and cemeteries as places that could sometimes be repurposed.

In the three-year research project, the potential of these urban obsolescences was systematically, empirically and qualitatively investigated.

The full report can be downloaded here:

https://obsolete-stadt.net/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/RoBo_Abschlussbericht_RZ_digital_Kurzfassung.pdf

 

Contact:

Prof. Stefan Rettich
University of Kassel
https://www.uni-kassel.de/fb06/institute/institut-fuer-urbane-entwicklungen/fachgebiete/staedtebau/startseite