We are One of Many

We are One of Many and we want to build a five-storey sustainable timber house in Berlin-Schöneweide that will provide affordable housing and be a meeting place for the neighbourhood. A house that is not for sale: We want to become part of the Miethäuser Syndikat. With our house concept we won a competition, a so-called tender concept, run by the state of Berlin! This means We can realize our plans on the site at Brückenstraße 20 in Schöneweide.

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The house

Brückenstr. 20

front view of our house/ Hans Christian Ziebertz

Sustainable new building

Our house is an ecological timber construction and meets passive house standards. It has five floors. On the façade facing the street, arcades connect the individual apartments and provide space for people to meet each other. Climbing plants climb up the house. The roof is also green and equipped with solar cells.

In front of the house there is a forecourt with a small basketball court which is open to the neighbourhood during the day. Behind the house is our vegetable garden.

Living

Our building is designed to accommodate a variety of living needs, from one-, two-, and four-room apartments to large community apartments. The floor plans are designed to be flexible so that individual apartments can be combined or separated. Some apartments are designed as cluster apartments, where residents share a common kitchen but not bathrooms. All apartments are accessible without thresholds and some are specially designed to be wheelchair accessible.

For us, it’s about living together, and our private rooms are designed to be small in comparison to the community spaces. The larger communal spaces that can be used by everyone, such as a room on the upper floor that could be used as a laundry room, workshop or shared office, and a project room on the ground floor that could be used for open activities and events.

Our house will be home to around 30 people of various ages. At least one third of the flats will be for people on low incomes (so-called “WBS flats”). These flats will be given to people who are discriminated against in the housing market, in cooperation with social institutions. Everyone who lives in our house has access to all the resources and common areas of the house. Luxury for all!

drawing of our house/ Hans Christian Ziebertz

Connected to the neighborhood

Our house will also be a meeting place for the neighbourhood. On the ground floor of the house there will be a café and a project room. The café will be run in collaboration with social organisations and will provide a low-threshold meeting place for people from the house and the neighbourhood. The project room, on the other hand, will provide a quieter atmosphere for counselling, group activities and events. In addition to the café, there will also be a doctor’s surgery on the ground floor to improve local healthcare.

The Area

We want to build our house on the property Brückenstraße 20 in Berlin-Schöneweide. In order to build a house there,  we are negotiating a building lease at the moment, Building lease means: We do not buy the land, but pay a ground rent every year for the next 99 years. The plot is about 830 square metres and is close to the river Spree.

image/ FIS-Broker

We

The association “One of Many” (1/n) is behind this project. It arose from the need to live together permanently and affordably in Berlin.

We are a group of 13 adults and five children. The youngest of us is a few months old, the oldest is 42 years old. Our living and family configurations are diverse. Some of us have been living in a community for several years and want to be able to do so for many more years – even if children come along or relationships change. Some have recently joined the group and share the desire for a self-managed, community-owned living space.

Through our professional work and experience, we bring a lot of relevant expertise to the table, such as: architecture and urban planning, design, landscape planning, sustainability, participation, integration, finance and project work.  We are and have been involved in various community-oriented urban development projects in Berlin, such as the Kreuzberg town hall block (Dragoner Areal), the House of Statistics and the Kindl area.

group picture/ private

We are all united by the idea that we can live better in a community, care for one another and act in solidarity. We are convinced of the idea of ​​the tenement  trust. We also want rent in Berlin to become affordable again – not just for us, but for everyone!

With “One of Many” we not only want to create space for living, but also for being. A place where people of different generations and backgrounds can live together, support each other and make a difference together.

We see ourselves as part of a growing movement for self-determined living in Berlin and look forward to exchanging ideas and networking with other initiatives.

Network

We want to build a house that is owned and managed by many, but not by one. Our house will be one of many: We want to become part of the Mietshäuser Syndikat (MHS). The Mietshäuser Syndikat is a solidarity group with more than 190 projects throughout Germany. Properties that become part of the MHS cannot be resold, but belong to the respective house GmbH forever. This is how it works: the Haus GmbH has two shareholders. One shareholder is our housing association – that is, all those who are tenants. The other shareholder is MHS. It has a veto over the sale of the house.

What is special about our project is that we are the first group that has won a tender competition from the state of Berlin and is aiming to cooperate with the Mietshäuser Syndikat !” 

We were only able to do this because we are part of the Berlin Tenement House Syndicate Initiatives (NBMHSI) network and have connected with community-oriented urban development projects and young cooperatives.

But it is also important to us to get involved in the neighborhood. We are in contact with social organizations in the neighborhood, such as offensiv’91 e.V.

This is how the Mietshäuser Syndikat works.