wagnisWEST Cohousing: A “City Within a City”

In Munich’s new Freiham district, the wagnisWEST residential development introduces a housing model centered on community. Designed by Austrian firm AllesWirdGut, the complex serves as a cohousing prototype that provides different levels of shared living. Sitting between city and countryside, the development comprises five volumes as a dynamic, flexible ensemble designed to evolve with the district.

wagnisWEST: Centered on community

Herwig Spiegl, one of the firm’s founding partners, notes that the planning process began with talking to the future residents, who had already been identified during the initial design phases. The plan was, therefore, shaped entirely by the community’s needs and offers an alternative to the atomized structure typical of contemporary urban housing.

The architects envisaged residential living as part of a larger organism, with private apartments alongside clustered housing and communal units with shared living rooms – both typologies that focus on varying degrees of proximity and interaction. Reflecting the core values of the design, private floor area was reduced in favor of collective spaces and outdoor zones.

A cohesive ensemble

The complex comprises five volumes, each with a different appearance but linked by a common circulation element – access via elevated walkways in the form of external galleries, pedestrian overpasses across footpaths, and internal circulation networks. These linking structures also function as interaction zones, places where communal life can unfold spontaneously against views across the entire complex.

Although formally distinct, the buildings share sufficient architectural features that the ensemble is visually legible. Open spaces likewise reflect the project’s variety, ranging from a large field with fruit trees to a more intimate internal plaza with a traditional urban layout. The result is a sequence of public and semi-public spaces that articulate collective life and reinforce a sense of community.

Connection to nature is integral to the project, with the city-edge location offering a direct relationship with the surrounding green space. The development is conceived to adapt to a continually evolving urban fabric.

wagnisWEST reads as a small urban ecosystem – a residential microcosm that models more collaborative, sustainable forms of shared living. Through the integration of architecture, nature, and community, the project demonstrates how contemporary living can move beyond the atomized model to rediscover the value of everyday relationships and the shared use of space.

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