Project Management for Building Groups: Lessons from Baugemeinschaft Practice

Drawing on experiences of building groups (Baugemeinschaft), a German model of collaborative housing, this article unravels the various tasks that need to be mastered by project managers, the scope of their performance, and the project phases in which they are engaged. It is the first paper to propose a set of requirements for the professional support of building groups through each phase of development and offers a new classification for project management tasks. The project management of collaborative housing requires technical, economic and organizational skills. Additionally, communicative skills are required to set and achieve realistic goals together. Most project initiatives cannot provide these services themselves and need the professional support of experienced project managers. The paper differentiates the role of the project manager from the traditional role of the architect and establishes the necessity for consistent engagement across project phases. The paper concludes that, in order to establish building groups, it is necessary to create sufficient local project management capacities, through various training opportunities and knowledge transfer.