New holiday archi­tecture: Andrea Gebhard in con­ver­sation

What role can holiday homes play in times of crisis and what could a “new” holiday archi­tecture pos­sibly look like? We talked about this with Andrea Gebhard, Pre­sident of the Federal Chamber of Archi­tects in Germany. And we also found out what true holiday hap­piness means to her.

Ms Gebhard, in times of energy tran­sition and climate change, archi­tects are faced with massive chal­lenges and bear a great social respon­si­bility. In your view, can the holiday home “as a labo­ratory of archi­tecture” play a signi­ficant role in further deve­lo­pment and adapt­ation in these con­texts?

Andrea Gebhard: Whether holiday archi­tecture can play a note­worthy role in coping with the climate cata­strophe is not obvious at first glance.
Cer­tainly, new ideas can be tried out in holiday homes, and second-hand mate­rials in par­ti­cular can be put to excellent use.
Trying out a wide variety of floor plans and the com­bi­nation of various apartment sizes is also often a great way to expe­rience new compact forms of living. If these expe­ri­ences can then be scaled up and imple­mented on a broad scale, that would cer­tainly be a con­tri­bution.

And, if so, where exactly do you see oppor­tu­nities for owners and archi­tects of holiday pro­perties to make an increased con­tri­bution to crisis management in the future?

Andrea Gebhard: In addition to the aspects men­tioned above, the con­tri­bution to crisis management is the breaking of habits. I am always amazed at how little comfort people have when they spend their holidays on camp­sites and in mobile homes, but how much comfort they demand in their own homes, so that we have to observe more and more stan­dards in housing con­s­truction.
I see great oppor­tu­nities in the straight­forward sim­plicity that holiday archi­tecture can convey.

Wouldn’t the holiday home sector be the perfect “play­ground” for testing the planned, new building type E^*?  More leeway and inno­vation in planning and building through a reduced number of stan­dards, gui­de­lines and requi­re­ments defi­nitely sounds fun­da­men­tally pro­mising to us…

Andrea Gebhard: Of course, I would very much welcome it if holiday archi­tecture deve­loped good examples here and if the “new holiday archi­tecture” were based on the con­version of existing struc­tures whe­rever pos­sible and could thus also upgrade existing buil­dings.

Building is curr­ently not only expensive and complex, and there is often simply a lack of trade­speople. According to our obser­va­tions, the situation is aggravated by the fact that there is a shortage of real estate and the prices are hor­rendous, espe­cially in metro­po­litan regions – while in many rural areas, vacancies are still one of the major issues. Do urban planning and archi­tecture have to readjust in order to stem the flight to the coun­tryside in the medium term? Or is this perhaps even more of a social oppor­tunity?

Andrea Gebhard: Our oppor­tunity as a society lies in the necessary to under­stand city and country as a spatial con­tinuum. Only if we under­stand that both the city and the coun­tryside and vice versa can only function in an interlocked way can we overcome the crises we are facing. This also includes using smart mobility offers and effective digi­ta­li­sation to lift the existing tre­asures of housing stock in rural areas and thus make it pos­sible for people to live and work in rural com­mu­nities as well.
At present, I would not speak of a flight to the coun­tryside, but of the oppor­tunity to offer people dif­ferent places to live.

Last but not least: When you go on holiday yourself – what do you attach importance to and what is expli­citly a “no go” in accom­mo­dation from your point of view?

Andrea Gebhard: For me, the beauty of both the sur­roun­dings and the hotel or holiday apartment is extremely important. I’d rather have a short holiday, but the accom­mo­dation, land­scape and city must be beau­tiful.
Comfort in terms of service is also very important to me.

The absolute dream was a house in Italy that we could rent with eleven people and where a cook from the neigh­bourhood always pre­pared a won­derful, very simple meal for us.
It was like childhood: holidays at grand­mo­ther’s… swimming in the river all day and then enjoying the most deli­cious food at home. And above all, you didn’t have to worry about any­thing – pure rela­xation!

A no-go is an ugly holiday home or a hotel with unfri­endly staff or on a noisy street. In that case, I imme­diately move.

* E for “simple building” or “expe­ri­mental building”.

Andrea Gebhard has been Pre­sident of the Federal Chamber of Archi­tects since May 2021. The land­scape architect and urban planner has already been poli­ti­cally involved in her pro­fes­sional for many years and in many ways.

The interview was con­ducted by Ulrich Stefan Knoll in October 2022.

Teaser Image: © Lau­rence Cha­peron