Rooms in shared flats are often expensive and hard to find. Especially in Heidelberg. Students and trainees have therefore created their own living space on a former US military site there. The Collegium Academicum offers space for around 250 people—and plenty of open space.

Franziska Meier sits on a terrace in Heidelberg and makes herself heard against the construction noise. Heavy machinery roars over from the neighbouring property. The remodelling of the US Hospital conversion site in Heidelberg is in full swing. Steel rods rise into the sky. It smells of concrete and cement. On the Collegium Academicum (CA) property, however, you feel more like being in a cosy sauna. There is wood on the walls and ceilings, and a shade of light brown dominates the exterior instead of dull grey. Wooden grids can be slid in front of the windows to protect the interior against the sun. Dowels and boards—instead of screws—connect the beams that hold up the building. “Just like in an old half-timbered house,” Franziska explains. And yet it’s quite forward-looking.

Initiated, planned and built by students—the Collegium Academicum (CA) in the Rohrbach district of Heidelberg.

Made of wood and initiated, planned, built and now managed by students themselves, the Collegium Academicum in the Rohrbach district is a special residence hall in many ways. The flatmates of a flat share in Plöck thought out a concept for it in 2013. The project made it into the Heidelberg International Building Exhibition (IBA) in 2016. Some 176 students, doctoral students and trainees moved into the new building in 2023. Another 80 people moved into an existing building next door in 2024. A room in the CA costs 375 euros, significantly less than elsewhere in Heidelberg. Apart from a private room in the flat share, the living space includes plenty of communal areas, such as a rooftop terrace, the garden, a multifunctional room with kitchen, workshop and, of course, the assembly hall, which offers space for more than 600 people and where public events like readings, panel discussions and parties take place. “What is going on here is impressive,” says Franziska, who co-founded the project.

Providing not only a roof over the residents’ heads, but also a creative space. This is how Franziska Meier sees the CA.

When she moved to Heidelberg in 2012 to do her Master’s degree, the historian quickly felt cramped in the city. “There were far fewer open spaces than in Erfurt where I had previously lived,” she recalls. The flat share in Heidelberg that she lived in back then regularly hosted seminars. They were about organic viticulture, de-growth and feminism. But the students wanted even more: an entire residence hall that would not only provide a roof over their heads, but also a creative space. It should become a place similar to the Collegium Academicum, which existed in Heidelberg’s old town from 1945 to 1978. Students, including the writer Rafik Schami, had lived there in a self-governing manner until they were evicted so the building could be used by the university. Franziska designed an exhibition about the eventful history of that residence hall in 2015.

The fundamental idea was and has been since that the residents organise their life together on their own on the basis of democratic principles. This means a lot of work—and lots of opportunities, too. The residents themselves decide who may use the assembly hall, when it’s quiet at night and how to deal with it when someone can’t pay rent. Apart from that, technical tasks need to be carried out, such as settling the utility bills, carrying out repairs and organising financing. “We do everything that a landlord would otherwise do,” explains Ann-Sophie Behrle, who has lived in the CA since September 2023. She studies German Studies in Cultural Comparison as well as Geography. She is responsible for selecting new residents at the CA, among other tasks, and is involved in the meet-and-greet and selection days that are held four times a year. A mix of lottery, points system and algorithm eventually decides who moves in where.

I have learnt to work with lots of different people since I’ve been here, and that my opinion isn’t automatically the best one

Ann-Sophie Behrle

According to the guideline everyone should invest two hours a week in self-administration tasks. On top of that comes the weekly plenary meeting. In this meeting the residents make all the important decisions—by consensus. In the end, you don’t have to be in favour of every decision, but you have to be able to support it at least. There is often a long discussion before the group reaches this point. Ann-Sophie appreciates the intensive discourse: “I have learnt to work with lots of different people since I’ve been here, and that my opinion isn’t automatically the best one.” Franziska didn’t move into the CA, but she spends a lot of time on site and is still on the management board of the limited company that she and her former flatmates founded in order to realise their dream. Consensus, transparency and minimal hierarchies have always been the principles on which they work. And Franziska also thinks it’s worth it: “I think we have found the best solutions because we had so many discussions.”

Just how creative these often are is visible, for example, in the floor plan of the flats. It is flexible. You can move walls, reduce shared rooms from fourteen to seven square metres and enlarge the shared kitchen-cum-living room accordingly. The trend right now is towards smaller private rooms, explains Ann-Sophie, who lives in seven square metres herself. She is often in other rooms and shared flats anyway and spends little time in her room. And then there are the common rooms. The students and trainees use them together and hence live on a relatively small surface of 26 square metres of living space per person—20 square metres less than the national average.

Flexible floor plans: You can enlarge or reduce the kitchen according to the residents’ wishes.

The project is considered a beacon in many other respects, too. It is the first building of this size to do entirely without steel connections in the timber construction. The Ministry of Food, Rural Areas and Consumer Protection of the state of Baden-Württemberg honoured the CA, awarding it the Holzbaupreis, a prize awarded for timber constructions. And the group chose the most sustainable alternatives possible wherever wood was not an option due to structural or fire protection issues. The floor slab of the new building, for example, is made from recycled concrete. The group either built the cupboards, tables and beds for the shared rooms themselves or collected them second-hand. They have also reused the furnishings from the Rhine-Neckar Metropolitan Region pavilion at the 2023 German National Garden Show in Mannheim.

Sauna feeling—the CA building is primarily made of wood.

Much of the work was actually done in-house. Nevertheless, they had to raise almost 30 million euros for the entire project. The money came from bank loans, grants and direct loans that private individuals gave to the CA at low interest rates. 4.5 million euros were raised in this way when the founding team had only hoped for 2 million. Franziska still remembers the early days well when she and the others advertised for the project at weekly markets across the city and its districts: “I still find it totally crazy that people gave us money when we had nothing but an idea.”

Together instead of alone: Persistence enabled the idea to become reality.

But it was a good one. And it ultimately won over the authorities, which were sceptical at first. “We were just a handful of young people who came up with great ideas,” Franziska says. But the students didn’t let up, spoke to all local parliamentary parties, attended practically every consulting session with the mayor and succeeded in getting the intended plot of land, the US Hospital site, including two existing buildings. Festivals are regularly held on Mendelejewplatz square between the buildings. The CA also organises regular guided tours. And you can lend a hand yourself. The residents have just renovated the former administration building with the support of many volunteers. They have uncovered the old parquet flooring and created eight flats (six of which are social housing). Plus 50 additional places in single and double rooms that are reoccupied every year. This is where the participants of the Falt*r programme live—an orientation year between the school and work periods that the founders of the CA would have liked to do themselves.

Only the porter’s lodge remains to be settled. It is to become an open meeting place. “We’re thinking about building an extension made of straw,” Franziska reveals. This material, too, has been used for ages—and, like wood, is considered a building material that has a great future ahead.


www.collegiumacademicum.de

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