Socio-Ecological Housing Strategies of Feminist Movements

The feminist planning movement of the 1970/80s in West Germany - particularly in the Kassel area - produced a series of communal residential and commercial buildings. The research project is dedicated to the question of how feminist design approaches, which were anchored in the new women's movement, materialized in architectural and urban planning projects and what significance they have for today's multiple crises - climate change, financialization of housing and social inequality.

In this context, Kassel plays a key role that has been little researched to date, as influential women such as Margrit Kennedy, the initiator of the Bauwelt special edition 31/32, Inge Meta Hülbusch, Inken Baller and Ruth Becker - author of the basic work Frauenwohnprojekte 2009 - taught and worked in Kassel.V. (Feminist Organization of Women Planners and Architects), which was founded in Kassel in 1983.

The central research questions are therefore: How did feminist housing projects come about and how would they still be possible today? What aspects contribute to the success and resilience of the specific projects? Where did these projects fail?

The research project will also examine the movement's discourses and forms of protest, its involvement in political processes, gender-sensitive financing methods and alternative forms of ownership. What influence did and does ownership, self-organization, administrative structures and alternative financing methods have on the projects?

Researchers: Gabu Heindl, Sabine Conti, Nina Manz, Florine Schüschke