CANCELLED: A Thousand Million Homes. The collective house and the future of housing

A lecture by Niklas Maak, Architect, Architecture Theorist and Journalist

By 2050, the United Nations expect a population growth of at least 1.5 billion people. It is predicted that between 900 million and 1.1 billion additional housing units will be needed in urban areas globally. This aim cannot be achieved with the current architectural resources, especially considering that the majority of residents will not have the money to finance a house or an apartment, as we know it.

There is an additional problem at the local level: Today’s housing policy hardly reflects demographic changes in our society and remains rigidly directed towards young families. The ever-increasing number of the elderly or single parents is mostly ignored. We build for a society that no longer exists.

How do you react as a planner to this fundamentally changing situation?
What will the hundreds of millions of housing units – that need to be built in any case – look like?

In his lecture Niklas Maak, author of the book “The Living Complex. From Zombie City to the New Communal” (2015), explores the impact of fundamental technological, demographic and social changes on housing developments, and introduces concepts for post-family collective architecture.