Successful communal housing has shown for decades the potential of community concepts and mutual support strategies in the architectural world. So far, however, there are still very few other projects in practice that propagate multiple user concepts for other typologies.
However, the idea of sharing goods and services is becoming more and more popular. Food sharing, clothes swapping, bike or car sharing and digital platforms for exchanging tools, plants and books have long been part of the everyday life of many. The exchange or passing-on usually takes place once and is non-binding. Car sharing remains the most common form of sharing. The individual benefits from the allocation of the costs for maintenance, technical inspections, parking fees, road tax and insurances to the majority.
Resource sharing emerged primarily as an emergency solution. With the increase in prosperity after the industrialization, a consumer society and a one-way manufacturing model has developed that strives for possession and not the pure access to resources. The collective development of environmental awareness and a shift towards a more sustainable society challenges old thinking patterns and gives the sharing of resources a new significance. These models, which question the old, are currently emerging in all areas and stages of life.
mehrraum is a component of this change.
The study questions the previous model of assigning singular uses to rooms and proposes advantageous alternative solutions.
mehrraum is resource-saving
The efficient use of existing buildings through more intensive occupacy and the strategic grouping of several usage scenarios and actors reduces the need for new construction projects and reactivates idle areas.
mehrraum enriches the city
The expansion of urban actors through multiple uses results in a livelier and more diverse city life. New communicative interactions are created and existing relationships are enriched. Integral urbanity, which is often desired by city planners and architects, is deliberately provoked. Urban development becomes more sustainable and has a positive social impact through more intensive occupancy and stronger neighborhoods.
mehrraum promotes economic synergies
Interim rental reduces the running costs for the individual users. All participants benefit from increased presence and exposure and can easily develop new customer bases. mehrraum is particularly attractive for new concepts and business ideas, which can be tested easily due to the lower expanses for sub-letting. It is easier to take the risks without extensive investments and long-term binding leases. In addition, previously unprofitable business concepts can become lucrative due to the new conditions and lower expanses.
As the well-known examples of sharing - communal living, but also the sharing of objects - show, mehrraum can also function and have positive influences on people and environment. But it requires courage and openness for new ways. Courage to leave the comfort zone, which gives comfort and security. Openness to try out new usage patterns and see oneself as part of a social structure. mehrraum requires commitment, which, as previously described, can pay off in monetary and social terms. We see mehrraum as an important element for an ecologically, economically and socially resilient society.
