Construction industry

The number of building permits has fallen in Germany. This is according to figures recently published by the Federal Statistical Office. From 2021 to 2022, the number of building permits fell by 6.9 percent to 354,400 apartments. The figures reflect building permits for both new and existing homes. "The difficult mix of rising interest rates, strong...

A very special hotel opened in Düsseldorf-Flingern at the beginning of March. At "b'mine", guests can not only stay overnight, but can also reach 26 so-called CarLofts with their car in a car elevator. After the elevator ride, the car can simply be parked in the parking space in front of the room. The parking spaces are designed not only to save guests the hassle of searching for a parking space, but also to...

The Construction Circular Economy Initiative under the auspices of the German Building Materials Association recently published a new monitoring report with figures on the generation and fate of mineral construction waste. According to Dr. Matthias Frederichs, Managing Director of the German Building Materials Association, "mineral construction waste is now almost completely...

A new design strategy for processing medium manganese steel with improved properties has now been developed by a research team, mainly from China's Northeastern University and the Max Planck Institute for Iron Research (MPIE) in Düsseldorf. During development, the research team took into account the fact that steels now not only have to be sustainable, strong and formable, but...

The German Architecture Prize 2023 is being awarded by the Federal Ministry of Building and the Chamber of Architects. Proposals for exemplary buildings or building ensembles can be submitted until Wednesday, March 29, 4 pm. These must have been built in Germany between January 1, 2021 and January 15, 2023. Proposals can also be submitted for buildings or building ensembles abroad.

The German Quality Association for Furniture (DGM) advises people to try out chairs and upholstered furniture extensively before buying. Prospective buyers should take 30 minutes or more to test the new piece of furniture. According to the DGM, they should not only check the individual seating comfort, but also take a closer look at the other features of the piece of furniture. In doing so...

The "Social Housing" alliance is calling on the federal and state governments to launch a joint "social housing offensive". A special fund of 50 billion euros must be made available by the state for social housing by 2025 in order to achieve the target of 400,000 social housing units by the end of the legislative period. Only 20,000 social housing units were built in 2022. The alliance is also calling for...

Interested parties can still apply for the Aerogel Architecture Award 2023 until Sunday, April 30, 2023 (11:59 p.m.). The "Realized Solutions" category is looking for internationally realized projects by architects and civil engineers in which aerogel is used in a special way. Students can submit their project ideas in the "Student designs" category.

The Federal Institute for Research on Building, Urban Affairs and Spatial Development (BBSR) has looked at living conditions in cities, districts and regions against the backdrop of the coronavirus pandemic and published a corresponding publication. The "Atlas of Urban and Regional Development" is also dedicated to the area of housing. Among other things, the authors have analyzed the development of rental and...

The price of new-build apartments rose by around 17% from November 2021 to November 2022. This was reported by the Federal Statistical Office (Destatis). Increased prices for various services and materials are likely to have had a significant impact on this. According to Destatis, prices for roofing and sealing work, among other things, rose by 20.3% in the period in question, while prices for...