Research sites

The empirical research of the BMBF association takes place in north-west Germany. Some 30 detached family houses and their residents are the sample of our analyses. As our scientific interest is in everyday practices and processes of the ascription of meaning, we work with qualitative, ethnographic procedures (house visits, interviews, object analyses).

In the process three sites are comparatively investigated: suburban housing areas near cities, estates in the vicinity of small towns and newly-built areas in rural areas close to villages. The BMBF association compares the living and housing forms in new builds (within the last ten years) and in family houses built after 1950 that have been sold, adapted and / or converted in the last ten years.