From a climate and environmental point of view, detached houses, however ecological they may be, are hardly justifiable. In view of the low number of residents, the consumption of land, materials and energy is clearly too high.
The detached house, specifically located in the countryside, with 100 to 150 m2 of living space, two bedrooms, one to two bathrooms, its own garden and a study, is still the most popular form of housing among Austrians, as a recent survey by Raiffeisen Immobilien shows. However, in times of climate change and housing shortages, this form of housing is being viewed increasingly critically: Given the relatively small number of residents, the consumption of space, building materials and energy is too high, and owner-occupied homes promote urban sprawl and cause additional traffic.
As a rule, the single-family home itself is not enough. Pipes, roads and sewers also have to be built and maintained by the local authorities. And another argument is put forward: Households are getting smaller and smaller; the number of single households, for example, has been rising steadily for years. In Germany, the first municipalities have already reacted: In Hamburg-Nord, for example, the construction of new single-family homes is prohibited, while in Münster this has been significantly restricted.
Single-family homes dominate
According to Statistics Austria, 64.5 percent of the 2.4 million buildings in Austria are single-family homes and a further 12.3 percent are two-family homes. 11.5 percent of the buildings fall into the multi-party house category. Incidentally, the approximately nine million Austrians could already be accommodated in the existing detached and semi-detached houses – in concrete terms, 4.8 people would live in each one.
Utilizing the potential of the existing portfolio
In this country too, experts such as Raimund Gutmann, founder of Wohnbund:Consult – Büro für nachhaltige Stadtentwicklung, Bauen und Wohnen, Madlyn Miessgang from the Future Lab at Vienna University of Technology, and Barbara Steinbrunner from the Institute of Spatial Planning at Vienna University of Technology are themselves critical of ecological detached houses and have repeatedly come to the conclusion that they have “no future”.
The alternative for all of them is to use existing buildings, not least because this saves valuable resources from being destroyed. What is needed here are concepts that help to save valuable space on the one hand and create a feeling of living in a single-family home on the other.
Compact building
Old town and village centers often serve as a model for this, in which attractive housing options, for example with roof terraces or inner courtyards, have been created in small spaces. Roland Rainer, Austrian star architect, had already drawn on this in the 1960s with his concept of dense low-rise construction – the garden city in Puchenau near Linz is considered a prime example of this. Rainer implemented all the criteria that he considered to be environmentally friendly and humane: These ranged from soil- and energy-saving urban development to prefabricated construction and car-free living.
However, densification is also possible in another way – by making existing single-family homes usable for more people. Architect Julia Lindenthal has shown how this could be done as part of the “ReHabitat” research project. Using four typical building typologies (estate house, bungalow, country house and two-family house) from the eastern Austrian region, she described the many ways in which these buildings can be converted into multi-occupancy houses and thus contribute to the promotion of sustainable forms of housing and housing development.
Related posts:
With attention to detail: old buildings in new splendor
In the middle of Vienna: living and living naturally in solid timber construction