Single-family house for Future

May 27, 2025, 7:30 p.m. Wohnhausanlage «Les Palétuviers», Wöberweg 6, 4060 Leonding and ONLINE

The Forum Baukultur* invites you to a practical discussion with Thomas Auer and Andreas Hild.

The single-family house is still treated as a marginal topic in architectural and urban planning discourses. However, this alone does not do justice to the sheer number of existing detached houses with one or two residential units. The question of how we deal with this stock therefore plays a key role in the discussion about how we want to secure a future worth living in.

The two professors who teach at the Technical University of Munich advocate better use of the enormous potential of single-family homes - around 16 million in Germany alone. According to them, the ecological, social and economic value of existing houses urgently needs to be safeguarded - also with a view to the future - both for the owners and for society. Targeted deregulation and funding should enable homeowners and local authorities to leverage this potential. Instead of threatening to force renovation, the state should create incentives that motivate owners to add new housing units and, ideally, reduce the size of their own living space. Energy efficiency upgrades become a by-product. Living in a detached house is (still?) far less sustainable than high-density multi-storey housing. At the same time, the potential of existing single-family homes could actually solve many problems.

The practical discussion with Thomas Auer and Andreas Hild takes place in the atrium of the "Les Palétuviers" residential complex by Fritz Matzinger in Leonding. Built in 1974, the residential building was an early pioneering alternative to the individualistic single-family home.

Thomas Auer is Professor of Building Technology and Climate-Friendly Construction at the Technical University of Munich and Transsolar Managing Director. He has held various teaching assignments and visiting professorships (Yale University, Ryerson University, etc.). He works with renowned architectural firms worldwide on award-winning projects. In his research, he deals with the decarbonization of the building sector, robustness through "low-tech" and the quality of stay in indoor and outdoor spaces.

Andreas Hild studied architecture at ETH Zurich and TU Munich, where he graduated in 1989. In 1992, he founded Hild und Kaltwasser Architekten in Munich. Since 1998, the office, now run by Andreas Hild, Dionys Ottl and Matthias Haber, has been operating under the name Hild und K Architekten. A Berlin branch was founded in 2012. Andreas Hild has been a full professor of design, conversion and monument preservation at the Technical University of Munich since 2013.

For those interested who cannot attend on site, there is a live stream of the event: mediaspace.ufg.at/media/t/0_wz40228b.

The event venue can be reached by public transport with bus line 17 (departure: Linz main station / stop: Leonding Aichbergstraße, max. 10 minutes on foot)

* The province of Upper Austria is committed to improving building culture in Upper Austria. An endowed professorship at the University of Art and Design Linz and a post-doctoral position at the Catholic Private University of Linz are funded for this purpose. The resulting Forum Baukultur also brings together the Chamber of Civil Engineers, Architects and Engineering Consultants for Upper Austria and Salzburg, the architekturforum oberösterreich and the Central Association of Austrian Architects, Upper Austria Regional Association. The close cooperation between educational institutions, professional associations and specialist forums provides impetus and brings together the perspectives that shape and determine building culture.