“Sustainability!” says Thomas Kremer from the Wogeno cooperative. “The variety!” enthuses Managing Director Gerda Peter of the municipal housing company GWG. “The beauty!” enthuses City Planning Officer Elisabeth Merk. The press event on the occasion of the new municipal wood construction subsidy program on Tuesday partly takes on the character of an advertising event for wood as a building material. And that’s quite intentional, because no one has yet applied for a subsidy from the new pot, although this would have been possible since March 1st.
In mid-January, the city council decided to support wooden buildings with a total of 60 million euros for six years, but not the single-family house on the outskirts of the city, but individual projects and settlements in social housing, including multi-storey buildings from building class four, i.e. at least seven meters high. At least 50 kilograms of wood or other renewable raw materials must be installed per square meter of living space; there is a one-euro allowance per kilogram for additional costs. The wood must come from sustainable management. Ulrike Klar from the planning department estimates that the money could be enough for 1,000 apartments per year, on average 10,000 euros per apartment.
“Timber construction alone will not save the world,” admits City Planning Officer Merk. You have to think carefully about where to use it. The city finally discovered the material for itself with the model settlement in the Prinz-Eugen-Park in Oberföhring, which is now fully inhabited and has also been funded. Various builders, including the municipal housing companies GWG and Gewofag, erected 566 wooden apartments there, the largest wooden housing estate in Germany. Based on this successful model, the city council decided on four new locations in January: On Henschelstraße in Lochhausen, where the GWG is currently building a complex with a daycare center, 80 of the 245 apartments are to be built in timber. In a part of the creative district, around 340 wooden apartments are planned; In the former Bavarian barracks, the administration considers the use of the building material to be possible in principle and testing is underway in Freiham Nord.
As far as the Bavarian barracks are concerned, Hans-Peter Hebensperger-Hüther from H2R-Architekten Munich, who are responsible for the GWG project together with Roedig Schop Architekten Berlin, is quite skeptical. With this density, “the complexity is enormous”, the technical problems with fire and noise protection are a challenge. The GWG is planning the groundbreaking ceremony for 190 of the approximately 5,500 apartments in September. A building with up to nine floors and an underground car park is planned. Hebensperger-Hüter speaks from experience, as H2R architects built a seven-storey wooden building in Prinz-Eugen-Park and attached great importance to sustainability. Not even the cubes that were cut out of the wooden facades for the window openings were processed into wood chips, he reports proudly. The offcuts have become solid wood stools, which are now being used as seating in a small cinema room above the underground car park exit.
The offcuts from the construction of a wooden house in the Prinz-Eugen-Park have become solid wood stools that are now in a small cinema room.
(Photo: Sebastian Kolm/H2R)
The GWG is currently planning and building around 500 apartments in timber construction, including on Hochmuttinger Strasse.
(Photo: GWG)
GWG managing director Gerda Peter and Christian Amlong, spokesman for the management, sing the praises of timber construction. About 500 apartments of this design are currently being planned or built, and the additional costs will not be passed on to the tenants. Klaus-Michael Dengler, spokesman for the Gewofag management, wants even more: “Timber construction has to be smarter,” he demands. It also has to be economical, and that’s where the subsidy comes in handy, because the costs are 15 to 20 percent higher than with conventional residential construction. On the other hand, wood comes from the region, so it “does not have to be carted 2,000 kilometers here”. And finally, with this material, the construction time is shortened “about a year”. That in turn pleases the residents “and is money for us because we can rent out a year earlier”.
The fact that the new timber construction funding pot is still untouched is primarily due to the exploding construction prices, as Thomas Kremer from Wogeno calculates: “In terms of profitability, we have been reaching our limits for a year or two.” In the Prinz-Eugen-Park, one square meter of living space was produced at a price of 3,200 euros and, according to the funding guidelines at the time, they received a subsidy of 350 euros, says Kremer. From the new pot there are about 150 euros. The funding only covers about half of the additional costs. So with Wogeno they have to think carefully about what they can afford: “We would really like to, we are completely convinced of timber construction, but the general conditions are blowing our minds at the moment.”