Berlin wants to address the shortage of apartments by adding extra stories to existing panel buildings

Berlin - The solution to expensive and scarce construction plots in Berlin could be extensions on panel buildings. The Berlin housing company Howoge has completed a pilot project that added three floors to the most common type of panel building in East Germany. Berlin's mayor, Franziska Giffey, believes that the Berlin project could expand to the whole of Germany. According to a study by the Technical University of Darmstadt, increasing panel buildings could create up to 1.5 million apartments in Germany.

"Maybe an export hit has just been born," Giffey said during a tour of finished apartments in the Berlin district of Buch. "It's a solution where, alongside densification and expanding buildings outward, we can also build upward," she added.

Buch is not significantly different from other East Berlin districts, where panel apartment buildings dominate. A large portion of them consists of the WBS 70 type, which became a standard in the former East Germany and is among the most widespread. This type of building was used by Howoge for the exemplary extension. Over the existing five stories, which housed 40 apartments, workers added three additional floors in the past two years. "We gained 22 new apartments," said Ulrich Schiller, who is the head of Howoge.

Schiller stated that Howoge has 74,500 apartments and that in the eastern part of the city, apartments are mainly in panel buildings, particularly of the WBS 70 type. "They are mostly five or six stories high. And what is offered more than an extension?" he said.

For existing residents, the extension of the panel building means living on a construction site for many months with increased noise and dust; in the case of the Buch project, it was two years. "But we want to get to 12 months," Schiller said. He believes that current residents will also benefit as the building received an elevator, new water, waste, and electricity installations, insulation, and bike storage.

A portion of the apartments created by the extension will be designated as social housing with regulated rents. In Buch, this will be half of the apartments. The rent here will start at 6.5 euros (160 CZK) per square meter.

Schiller noted that not all buildings can be extended. "Our surveys showed that adding additional floors is a very complex step that is not suitable for every building and location," he said. The key factor is whether the existing building can bear the new construction. "We built with wood, which is a lightweight and ecological material that is a pleasure to work with," he stated.

However, even with the use of lightweight materials, it was necessary to strengthen the building's structure. For this reason, workers poured a concrete slab up to 25 centimeters thick in the basement, which helps distribute the new load better.

In the case of the buildings that Howoge owns, according to Schiller, about 2,000 apartments could be created thanks to three- to five-story extensions. According to a 2019 study by the University of Darmstadt, extending panel buildings could lead to the construction of up to 1.5 million apartments throughout Germany. The study also focused on extensions of parking garages, office buildings, and single-story shopping centers, as well as the redevelopment of unused office buildings. According to academics, this would give Germany a total of up to 2.7 million apartments.