The Karlsruhe municipal housing company has taken on a building group for an entire residential area on a conversion site. By involving the future owners at an early stage, it was possible to incorporate their residential ideas into the urban development framework planning. The desire to realise communal housing projects grew out of the joint planning in an intensive consultation process, in which the German Werkbund and the city were also involved. The result is 17 building groups and 185 residential units, each with different designs, price categories and images - from affordable, family-friendly terraced houses to maisonette flats and detached single-family homes. A whole spectrum of innovations was trialled: car-reduced development, ecological open space design, energy-saving construction methods of various types through to passive houses.