Serial Housing Project Bremer Punkt

Situated in generous green open areas, existing urban niches are activated by the punctual integration of four-storey wooden prefabricated cubes with a surface area of only 14 x 14 m, allowing green spaces to retain their character and function. The project offers an upgrade to the 1950s housing stock and affords existing tenants intergenerational equity.

The modular timber prefab system allows for high adaptability and provides flexible layout possibilities for site-specific needs in response to individual demands. In spite of their size, the smallest two-to-three-room apartments with a living area of 44 - 58 m² succeeds in delivering affordable housing with a higher-than-average standard of living: wooden construction, generous façade openings, spacious exterior surfaces, optimized orientation to the south-west as well as modern, sustainable building technology that guarantees a high level of comfort.

The green living quality is accentuated at a variety of scales through large, playful façade openings with their immediate connection to the outdoor vegetation. A full-height glazed corner connects the living area to the loggia and creates a spatial extension, which becomes an integral part of the apartments. Through the use of large sliding doors, rooms can be closed off, divided or extended according to need, offering different ways of living, dining, cooking, gardening, working, playing and resting.

The Bremen-Cubes can accommodate up to eleven apartments per building. The Floor Plan Kit showcases a catalogue of twenty-two apartment typologies, which can be combined with one another in over sixty variations. The apartments range between a 30 m² one-room apartment to a 138 m² six-room apartment. The serial building typology compliments the existing housing with new, flexible and barrier-free floor plans.

A modular concrete and timber construction system made up of predominantly prefabricated building elements allows for a variety of floor plans, and enables the building to be erected in the shortest possible time with minimal disturbance to the surroundings. The Bremen-Cube fulfils the standard "KfW Effizienzhaus 55" with a yearly primary energy use at a maximum of 55% of reference buildings from the "EnEV 2014".

The Bremen-Cube offers flexible and site-specific proposals for public or privately funded models, providing a high social mix and intergenerational equity. The modular, serial building typology presents feasible economic solutions: nineteen of the twenty-two apartment typologies fulfil the requirements of the "Bremer Wohnraum-Förderungsprogramms" (Bremen housing funding board).

The high adaptability and multiplicity of the Bremen-Cube makes it a pilot project for sustainable construction extensions to social housing on an urban scale. In February 2017 the first three Bremen-Cubes prototypes are completed in the GARTENSTADT SÜD.

The third Bremen-Cube is realized as an exemplary community housing project in collaboration with young people, elderly, disabled, refugees and low-income persons and families. At present there are seven Bremen-Cubes in planning and realisation in the districts Neustadt, Kattentum and Schwachhausen, followed by more Bremen-Cubes to be implemented.