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Comment by bogomipz | Hacker News Reader

>"Berlin has supply, the limited resource are vintage buildings (pre-war or rebuilt in the same layout)"

Is this the courtyard style apartment building you see in Berlin? Is there a name for those? I'm guessing these are the desirable ones?

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It's called Altbau and is usually combined with Blockrandbebauung, which the other commenter mentioned. I don't understand why this style hasn't seen a comeback yet.

Its most charming qualities are high ceilings (3-4 meters), historicist ornamentals / stucco, natural ventilation (Fugenlüftung), wooden flooring and boy-type windows. All of these increase quality of living substantially and I wouldn't want to live in any other kind of building if given the choice.

Thanks! Indeed this is what I was asking about/referring to. I spent a few months in one and the ventilation and the light due to the windows facing into the courtyard made for a pleasant living experience.

It's called Mietskaserne https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mietskaserne

Blockrandbebauung. I don't know a name for the opposite though, parallel lines on an open lawn. The latter wouldn't even be so bad of it wasn't usually scaled out of proportion. One of the earliest examples is also in Berlin ( https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Großsiedlung_Siemensstadt ) and it's actually quite nice. But it is incompatible with ground floor business, a key element of gentrification in cities that are not New York or London (but I guess in this case, being an UNESCO world heritage site wasn't too bad of a substitute, again something you can't just pot into the design specification of a new development).

That picture wasn't quite what I was thinking of. I think the name might be "Mietskasernen"? Basically you have a square "Hof" or courtyard in the middle of a square apartment complex where the bike rack and recycle bins will be and apartments look down into it. And through the courtyard is how you enter the individual apartment. Is Mietskasernen the correct term?

Yes it is, although it implies community toilet on the floor and general resemblance to barracks (ger. Kaserne). So proponents wouldn't generally call it that.

Thanks, Altbau was the term I was grasping at, a commenter above managed to articulate it where I failed.

Sorry for the confusion, everything after the initial "Blockrandbebauung" was about the opposite, for contrast. "Mietskaserne" is really just a derogatory nickname and could be applied to any form of high density, low quality rental apartment building.

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