Our work is based on the position paper from March 2023. It describes the tension between housing shortage, land consumption, ecology and economy — and names the questions we must seriously discuss.
The housing question is back at the centre of domestic politics. In Munich it meets a particular dynamic: growing population, limited land, rising rents, increasing resistance to new development areas.
The Pestel Institute's „Social Housing Monitor 2026", commissioned by the Soziales Wohnen alliance (including the German Tenants' Association and IG BAU), identifies around 1.4 million missing apartments in Germany — more than 910,000 of them social housing. Munich is short of about 16,900 units, Bavaria as a whole 233,000. Munich's annual new-build need: 9,590 apartments.
New development areas increasingly face resistance. The citizens' initiative „Preserve green space" illustrates: expanding into open land is politically only limited possible.
With the update of the Munich High-Rise Study adopted on 28 June 2023, a strategic course was set. The study defines where and how high construction will be permitted — currently in the February 2025 version.
On 19 January 2026, the Bavarian Administrative Court of Appeal finally ruled the „HochhausSTOP" citizens' petition inadmissible. The zoning plan — two 155 m towers (Herzog & de Meuron), around 1,200 apartments and 3,000 jobs — is thus legally secured.
We do not claim to hold the final answers — we formulate the questions that every serious debate must answer.
Housing needs space. If the expansion is not to go outwards, it must go upwards. That is not an ideological decision, but a matter of arithmetic.
High-rises can be ecologically sensible — if they are consistently planned with energy, circular economy and material efficiency in mind. Embodied energy is part of the equation.
Munich has a grown silhouette. High-rises must fit in — through site selection, height gradation and architectural quality. Not every plot is suitable for height.
Densification must not lead to displacement. Social mix is a value in itself — and a prerequisite for urban resilience.
Social housing, cooperatives, quota requirements: the toolbox exists. It must be applied consistently to high-rise projects, too.
Rising construction costs endanger housing construction as a whole. Processes, standards and levies must be honestly reviewed — without losing quality and safety.
The interest-rate turn and financing reality fundamentally change project calculations. Politics and business must jointly create viable framework conditions.
We see positions as an invitation. Join the discussion — at one of our events or directly by email.
Thinking ecologically means: land consumption, mobility behaviour, energy balance, life cycle. High-rises can provide answers in all these fields — if planned holistically.
A high-rise with 200 apartments uses less land per apartment than a classical detached-home area. Land conservation is an environmental argument.
Dense neighbourhoods enable short distances, proximity to public transit and therefore lower CO₂ emissions in daily life. Density is a mobility question.
Sustainability is determined not only in operation but already in planning — through materials, deconstructability and flexibility of use.
Those who want height need quality — in urban design, architecture and society. These three quality layers are not negotiable.
Not every plot is suitable for a high-rise. Topography, public-transit connection, urban context and silhouette must be right.
High-rises shape a neighbourhood for decades. International competitions and high design standards are mandatory, not optional.
Ground-floor zones, a mix of living, working, culture, public spaces: a good high-rise gives the city more than it takes.