The side wings, or Flügelhäuser, of multi-story residential buildings in European cities extend backwards into the plot, thereby reducing the frontage development costs of the property. It separates the public space from the private and creates a garden or courtyard for residents to use freely. This extension of the living spacewhich is taken for granted in single-family homes and row houses, yet often absent in contemporary rental buildingssignificantly improves the quality of life in the building. Offering both a wide range of possibilities and architectural freedom, buildings that feature these side wings have huge potential as a guiding design for a socially diverse city.

Christoph Mäckler is an architect based in Frankfurt am Main, an emeritus professor of urban design at TU Dortmund, and director of the Deutsches Institut fur Stadtbaukunst, which he founded in 2008. He studied architecture in Darmstadt and Aachen. From 1990 to 1997 he was a visiting professor at universities in Naples, Braunschweig, and Hanover, as well as a member of the Internationale Bauakademie Berlin. After finishing his architecture degree at HFT Stuttgart, Mischa Bosch studied at TH Karlsruhe and completed a DAAD exchange scholarship at ETH Zürich. Following his postgraduate studies, he began working at PROF. CHRISTOPH MÄCKLER ARCHITEKTEN as an architect in 1999, and became design planning lead for the firm in 2004. In 2009, he became a partner at the firm, and he has been a managing director of MÄCKLER ARCHITEKTEN since 2017.