During the housing crisis of the 1920s, the German concept Existenzminimum (minimum dwelling) was developed and applied to the construction of public social housing. It was considered a design laboratory, where research, design, and experimentation would focus on a unique goal: create a space-efficient affordable housing typology, based on minimum quality standards. Empirical evidence indicates a renewed interest in alternative design solutions and minimum dwelling approaches over the last decade: examples include micro-housing solutions and collaborative housing models. This is due to the current affordable crisis and the increasing trend of urbanisation. However, little is known about the current interpretation of Existenzminimum. What does the concept entail today and how has it developed? This article investigates if and how Existenzminimum is currently applied: first, it unfolds the core design principles of the original Existenzminimum. Then, these principles are used to assess if and how existing affordable or low-cost housing approaches are current (re)interpretations of the concept. Finally, the article proposes a definition for a contemporary Existenzminimum, arguing that a better understanding and awareness of the concept can help urban planners, designers, policy-makers and citizens in developing alternative affordable housing solutions.
Building costs play a significant role in determining the affordability of a housing project, and these depend to a large extent on design choices. This paper is based on the premise that collaborative design processes, or co-design, used in collaborative housing (CH) in Europe reduce building costs and consequently increase the affordability of these housing projects. However, research remains scarce on the extent to which CH is an affordable solution from a design perspective compared to affordable mainstream housing (MH), in which no co-design is used. Therefore, this paper aims to fill this knowledge gap by assessing the impact of design choices on building costs in CH and MH. To this end, we developed a simulation model to compare the building costs of CH with MH based on their design choices. Findings indicate that CH represents a more affordable and space-efficient solution when compared to MH, if we look at the building costs per unit. This is because CH provides less expensive units while it includes larger common spaces and extra quality. These results help to refute existing claims about the unaffordability of CH design solutions.
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