Development of the Construction Activity

In the context of the development of construction activity, the construction of new buildings and the demolition of entire buildings are taken into consideration. A distinction is made between single-family and two-family houses (SFH), multi-family dwellings (MFH, excluding communal residences) and various non-residential buildings (NRB). The figures reflect trends in new construction and demolition for the period from 1995 to 2050, expressed in millions of square metres of usable and living area. The focus on usable area and living area means that, for residential buildings, usable area is included in addition to living area where, for example, part of a dwelling is used as office space. Conversely, for non-residential buildings, living area is also included alongside usable area where, for example, the building contains a caretaker’s flat.

The data for 1995 to 2025 are based on the construction activity statistics of the Federal Statistical Office (Destatis 2026a,b; Genesis-Online 2025a,b). The data for 2026 to 2050 were calculated on the basis of variant G2L2W2 of the 15th Coordinated Population Projection by the Federal Statistical Office (Destatis-15. KBVB 2025) and on average per capita floor area figures (m²/capita) for new construction and demolition of buildings, derived from past development (Schiller et al. 2025). 

In addition, assumption-based adjustment factors for new construction and demolition were incorporated into the simulations in order to cap both the consumption of living area in shared flats and the per capita usable area in non-shared flats within the existing building stock by 2050 (Schiller et al. 2025).