The Institute for Housing and Design was newly founded in 1997 in connection with the establishment of a foundation professorship by the Wüstenrot Foundation. It includes a professorship for architecture (draft) and a professorship for architectural and living sociology. This combination characterizes the institute's special interdisciplinary profile. Housing is currently undergoing dynamic change. Thus, the diversity of lifestyles, household types and housing needs requires new, more flexible living arrangements. With the transition to the information society, technical innovations as well as new possibilities of combining living and working become apparent. At the same time, urban, dense living is gaining in importance again. An integral part of the design of needs-based and sustainable forms of housing construction is the concern for their ecological-energetic, social and economic sustainability. This includes the increased involvement with building in existing buildings.
In addition to the basic teaching in the field of building theory, the emphasis in teaching and research in the future-oriented and interdisciplinary issues such as the possibilities of resource-saving and flexible construction, the mixed use and a meaningful spatial and social condensation. In addition to the introduction to social, social and cultural perspectives of architecture and urban planning, the focus of the Department of Architectural and Residential Sociology is primarily on the question of human needs, the connection between the built environment and social behavior and the possibilities of a user-related architecture. Research topics of the department include i.a. Changes in housing, forms of urban life, settlement development in non-metropolitan areas to the perspective of industrial cities and the history of housing and settlement.