Franklin Village Mannheim: Social housing made of wood

August 1, 2023 was the move-in date for Franklin Village in Mannheim. It is one of the first major socially and ecologically developed housing projects in Germany. Find out more about sauerbruch hutton’s project, which aims to provide a village in the city, here.

Berlin-based architecture firm sauerbruch hutton has launched Franklin Village, one of the first large-scale, socio-spatially and ecologically developed residential projects in Germany. The aim is to create a “village in the city” in Mannheim based on the model of a rural community. The team is primarily using timber architecture for this.

The lively urban quarter with its 90 three-storey rental apartments meets high ecological and social sustainability standards. The city of Mannheim wants to implement a social mix as well as inclusion, open space, modern urban planning and energy and mobility for the future. The lighthouse project is being developed and managed by Innovation and Profund.

Another important aspect of Franklin Village is the multi-generational concept. The village is intended to embody themes such as a sense of home, identification, diversity, lively togetherness, a caring community, participation and comprehensive sustainability. Different living needs are satisfied here so that many different people feel at home.

To achieve this, Franklin Village works with high architectural quality and spaces that support relationships and communication. These include inviting communal areas, for example. Supportive neighborhood moderation is also used, as is a targeted mix of residents. The first people have been living in Franklin Village since August 1, 2023.

Franklin Village caters to different living requirements and offers a variety of apartment types and sizes. These are mainly distributed across the various storeys. Large apartments alternate with two- and three-bedroom units and cluster apartments. The architects hope that all generations and lifestyles will feel at home here and that people will be able to identify with their place of residence and feel at home. Franklin Village will have its own neighborhood association to help guarantee and support the quality of community life.

As an inclusive residential area for all generations, Franklin Village also offers care and supply solutions close to the neighborhood. The urban design of the ensemble around a large inner courtyard shows that the focus here is on the community. A separate building, the so-called Quartierforum, with 170 square meters of space, also offers a contact point that creates relationships. The barrier-free multifunctional space offers a kitchen, a lounge, a meeting room and a roof garden. Activities of all kinds are to take place in the forum. There is also a children’s playroom, a bicycle and craft workshop and communal rooms that can be rented. The offer is aimed at all village residents. It is supplemented by a neighborhood app with a news function, ticketing and information articles as well as a digital bulletin board.

There used to be a military complex on the Franklin Village site, one of the largest residential areas for US armed forces. There is nothing left of it today. (Partly because the Federal Garden Show 2023 in Mannheim opened on the site on April 14. Part of the BUGA was the U-Halle – winning project of the German Sustainability Award 2023, Architecture category). The architects from sauerbruch hutton (Berlin) have implemented Mannheim’s largest timber construction project here. This flagship project for timber construction in multi-storey residential buildings shows that wood as a building material can make a significant contribution to the energy transition and to reducing CO2 emissions.

A total of around 2,500 trees (750 cubic meters of wood) were needed to build Franklin Village. This amount of wood binds around 750 tons of CO2, whereby the amount of wood grows back in Germany in less than 6 minutes. The wood used comes from the Mannheim region and was processed in Austria. Due to its model character, the Franklin Village is being funded by the European ERDF development fund and the Baden-Württemberg State Ministry for Rural Areas with around 500,000 euros. The total cost of the multi-generational residential quarter is 27 million euros.

In addition, Franklin Village will emit very little CO2 in the long term thanks to the use of e-mobility, car sharing and photovoltaics. As a pioneering residential building, the timber construction quarter is intended to show what social, ecological and economic sustainability in residential construction can look like.

Incidentally, architecture by MVRDV is also represented in the new Franklin Mannheim district – with a high point in the shape of the letter O.

Read more: Mannheim is increasingly becoming a pioneer in urban planning. You can see the top 5 projects from the city in Baden-Württemberg here.