LIVING.BRAND — HD#1
Berlin — a snapshot of the current modern living concepts
Exploring different opportunities for elevated living in the German capital
Walking around Berlin in 2019 provides you with very diverse viewpoints. The whole city seems like a smorgasbord of buildings from all kinds of decades. Depending on the neighbourhood, mostly Wilhelminian style buildings still dictate the scene, but there are a lot of spaces between these old buildings, caused by bombings during the second world war, that were filled with post-war architecture. Even to today, there are not that few open building sites, which are slowly used for a redensification of the German capital. What you end up with as a spectator, is a very shattered image of the city, that makes it impossible to recognize specific characteristics, but rather provides the feeling of standing in a hybrid reality of Vienna, St. Petersburg and a version of New York without skyscrapers.
If you look behind the facades of these diverse buildings and structures, you will find a rather homogeneous style of living. The majority of apartments in Berlin are rented out without furniture to one or two main tenants for an unlimited period of time. There are almost never any additional service layers such as doormen or integrated gyms and pools like people are used to in the metropolises of the United States. Also, there is usually just a physical rental contract between the tenant and the owner / property management, that is signed at the beginning of the move in. After that, the tenant is handed the keys and takes responsibility for handling all other necessities like choosing a network carrier, picking an electricity provider or paying broadcast fees. Generally speaking, people in Berlin occupy the city’s living areas in the same way they would have done 50 years ago.
While the world is changing in a pace hardly controllable or even understandable for most people, the majority of living concepts in Berlin are stuck in a time zone before the internet was even the seed of a thought.
Of course, there are also examples of living ideas that focus on the future and try to prepare as well as allow tenants to enjoy habitation on the forefront of development. However, these concepts still account for the minority of solutions, which shows that there need to be stronger and faster developments in a modern living direction. When analysing the housing landscape of Berlin, it turns out that there are basically 3 approaches, which are executed in different versions.
- Building from scratch (Develop an unused / empty building site into a new construct from the ground)
- Transforming / refurbishing an existing residential or commercial space into a new living concept)
- Furnishing existing apartments and renting them out as flexible and full-service packages
Basically, any modern living concept that is executed in Berlin falls in one of the three categories above. I will take the next paragraphs to showcase some the most promising and exciting ones:
This is a ground-up development including over 300 different apartments as well as co-living flats in 4 different buildings all designed by GRAFT Architekten. The project features outstanding architecture and various ideas for future living concepts such as included services and shared amenities like gyms, kitchens, terraces, etc.
This is a project that includes more than 100 serviced apartments (micro-units with small bathrooms and kitchens + additional services like cleaning ladies or included care products) in a big building, which was also built from scratch as brand new development. The interior was done by Studio Aisslinger and is focussed on the comfort of the customer while meeting high design and aesthetics standards.
Already a Berlin classic, the Gorki Apartments are a modern boutique hotel that features 35 differently sized apartments that can be rented short or long-term while enjoying hotel-like services (daily cleaning, concierge, etc.). The design of the Apartments reminds a visitor of the British Soho House style that can be seen now all over the world.
Life X is a new co-living provider that focusses on restructuring existing apartments into shared living spaces by installing new walls, bathrooms, and so on while decreasing the sqm / person ratio. The firm focusses on Scandinavian design and has partnered with HAY for all of their apartment’s furniture. The apartments are serviced, so a customer pays a full-package price that includes everything from wifi, electricity or cleaning to basic residential products.
While all of the concepts mentioned above differ slightly in their execution and customer segments, they all include approaches for future living ideas and visions. Seeing these brainchildren evolve to reality is exciting as there really need to be changes in the way people live together in the 21st century. However, this is just the beginning and there will be more ventures trying to shift our living reality. The concentration needs to lie on comfort, flexibility, sustainability, and design. After all, living is the most prominent industry there is, because people should never be without homes and architecture is our way to build our own realities - you are never not affected by it.
Over the next weeks, we will feature more and more articles, stories, ideas, visions as well as general information about future living concepts mainly focused on Berlin and New York City.
Please check out our website www.livingbrand.ninja or our IG channel @livingbrand.ninja where we will post all of our content and would love to start discussions about the way we should and will live!
