Housing Project in München

Collective living between spruce and steel

Collective living
Housing Project in München

Collective living between spruce and steel

Walking through the quiet, predominantly residential streets of south-east Munich, there is little to suggest that a small-scale housing in collective living is taking place.
Yet the new development on Görzer Straße immediately stands out. In a neighbourhood dominated by rendered façades and brickwork, the building presents an architecture of deliberate contrasts: naturally weathered timber cladding meets the cool, robust character of profiled steel sheeting and hot dip galvanized steel components.

Space for Community and Individuality

The building is more than simply a residential development. Its aim was to create permanently affordable, self-managed housing.

The concept developed by the building collective, which adopted the name ‘Schwarmstimmung’, explores a model of collective living that deliberately softens the boundaries between private retreat and communal space. Rather than simply living alongside one another, residents share resources, a large communal area, a workshop and a laundry room in the basement.

This participatory approach shaped the project from the construction phase onwards. Residents contributed directly to the building process, including installing the photovoltaic system and treating the exposed screed floors themselves.

Collective Living Architecture Designed to Adapt

At the heart of the three-storey timber building are large cluster apartments, where individual rooms of approximately 18 square metres are arranged around a shared entrance hall and a central bathroom core.
The above-ground floors were designed as a resource-efficient structure using timber-frame walls constructed from locally sourced timber and solid timber floors formed from glued laminated timber elements.

The structural system has been carefully designed to allow rooms to be combined or separated as residents’ needs change. Predetermined separation points at lintels and thresholds enable the internal layout to be adapted with minimal intervention. Special dovetail connections provide the necessary acoustic separation between living spaces.

The architecture can therefore respond to changing stages of life, growing families and evolving household arrangements.

Collective Living Architecture

An Aesthetic of Contrasts

The design deliberately exposes the relationship between architectural expression, materials and construction.

The rainscreen façade of locally sourced spruce is articulated at each floor level by profiled steel sheeting. The sheets feature a zinc coating and an organic polyester coating, together with a sound-absorbing fleece backing, and provide weather protection for the external timber canopy.

The sheets are mechanically fixed so that they can be easily dismantled at the end of their service life and returned to the material cycle for reuse.

Hot dip galvanized steel components are central to the building’s material expression. On the one hand, they perform essential protective and structural functions. On the other, their characteristic surface appearance contributes to the architecture both externally and internally, providing a distinctive contrast with the warm solid timber ceilings and exposed screed floors of the living spaces.

Hot Dip Galvanized Steel in Focus

One of the building’s most important interfaces with the surrounding neighbourhood and landscape is the three-storey balcony structure.

Designed as a structurally independent element, the balcony structure is supported at ground-floor level by six substantial steel columns.

Close-mesh hot dip galvanized steel grating was selected for the balcony decking. In addition to its distinctive visual character, this solution generated significant cost savings. The free-draining construction eliminated the need for a complex rainwater guttering system.

All balcony guarding is also fabricated from hot dip galvanized steel. The balustrades consist of welded framed panels incorporating crimped wire mesh, while open vertical circular hollow sections provide the necessary structural bracing.

Hot dip galvanized steel also forms part of the everyday experience of the individual living spaces.

The full-height windows have a low sill height of just 70 centimetres and therefore require protective guarding. Crimped wire mesh panels were again used to provide fall protection.

 

Integrated planter supports positioned in front of the windows allow residents to introduce planting across the full width of the façade, bringing greenery directly to their individual rooms and creating the experience of a small garden immediately outside the window. 

The architectural composition is completed by the external staircase on the north façade, which provides safe access to the basement bicycle store. The staircase incorporates hot dip galvanized steel guarding and handrails.

The use of hot dip galvanized steel reinforces the project’s restrained, utilitarian architectural language. At the same time, the long-term corrosion protection and durability provided by hot dip galvanizing support the building’s wider sustainability objectives and reduce the need for maintenance throughout the service life of the steel components.

The multigenerational housing development on Görzer Straße demonstrates that subsidised housing and high architectural quality need not be mutually exclusive.

Through the deliberate combination of timber and durable hot dip galvanized steel, the project has created an adaptable model for collective living, designed to respond to changing household structures and remain in use for generations.
Julia Klaaßen
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Project Information

Architect: etal. ArchitektInnen PartGmbB Bengtsson Masla Syren,

In collaboration with: Baugruppe Görzer 128 GmbH and Mietshäuser Syndikat

Façade: TIMIN GmbH

etal. & Federico Farinatti

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