Unfortunately, the City of Freiburg, Germany, a university town, has lacked affordable housing for students for quite some time. Due to the overall shortage of available houses and apartments, rents have increased continuously over the past few years.

The objective of building the student apartment complex was to offer furnished apartments for EUR 250 a month, which is considered affordable. The monthly rent was used as the basis to compute the available refinancing amount and thus the anticipated construction costs, which in turn were used to decide how much residential space would be available in the apartments for each resident.

The complex is now home not only to students, but also to others with different backgrounds: a young family with one child, a single mother of two, engineers on service assignments, retired spouses who travel a lot and many more. All around the building, the architecture provides plenty of opportunities to encounter one’s neighbors and start conversations. The complex makes it possible for students who are new in town to establish new contacts. Hence, people get to know each other, become acquaintances and there is a sense of community awareness everyone gets to participate in.