Cost awareness as design strategy
Atelier Kempe Thill
1:1000 Floor plan
1:1500 Floor plan
Schematics
1:1500 Floor plan
Schematics
The ongoing economic optimisation that architecture is subject to first gained importance on a broader scale during the industrial revolution. During the age of Modernism, due to industrial construction methods and social -democracy as political basis, more and more housing was developed for individuals at the minimum subsistence level. This resulted in subsidised social housing construction that was mostly interpreted as “cost efficient construction”. Public buildings belonged in a different category: In Europe, even in the 1990s, budgets for these projects were often less limited. As result, even newly developed construction types and expensive materials found use.