"Densification should translate into a more intensive use of already built space"

A recent survey conducted by Comparis highlighted the fears of the Swiss of facing an insufficient housing supply. While this risk of shortage seems to be growing in people’s minds, the majority of citizens surveyed by the price comparison platform are nevertheless reluctant to increased densification of urban areas. "Switzerland faces a dilemma: the housing shortage is widely felt. However, realistic solutions are blocked at the political and societal levels," says Harry Büsser, real estate expert at Comparis.

In a LinkedIn post reacting to the results of this survey, Sascha Nick, a researcher at EPFL's Laboratory of Environmental and Urban Economics, for his part believes that Switzerland is not suffering from a housing shortage. "The result of the Comparis survey gives the impression of a shortage, but this is above all the product of a wrong systemic objective: considering housing as an asset class rather than as an essential element for meeting fundamental human needs." A discussion with him. Interview.

People keep talking about an impending shortage in the real estate sector... Is this analysis wrong in your view?

Switzerland does not lack buildings as such, but rather a system designed to consider housing as a response to fundamental human needs, and not as a mere financial asset. This structural orientation thus produces and sustains an artificial feeling of shortage, even though the number of existing constructions would, in principle, be sufficient to meet real needs.

You believe that many buildings are currently underused... What do you mean by that?

Underuse rarely means the existence of completely empty dwellings. It mainly refers to situations in which people live in apartments much larger than what their current life situation would require. This situation is explained in particular by the difficulties related to moving, by current rent protections, or by the ownership of multiple dwellings by some households.

Before densifying further, wouldn't the priority above all be to renovate existing buildings?

Absolutely. The renovation rate is currently about 0.8% per year, but with a moratorium on new constructions and a complete reassignment of architects, engineers and skilled workers to renovation, it would be possible to quickly reach a rate of 6% per year. Such an acceleration would make it possible to more effectively solve problems of housing quality and flexibility.

Existing buildings could theoretically house about 18 million people and, realistically, at least 14 million.

Isn't there also a problem of a significant oversupply in commercial real estate, to the detriment of housing?

The world of work is evolving rapidly, notably with the generalization of teleworking, and commerce is increasingly moving online. From a sustainable-society perspective, these activities are also expected to rationalize and to occupy less physical space than before.

At the same time, zoning, which strictly separates places of residence, work and commerce, is an invention that creates car dependency. It rigidifies building uses and limits the possibilities of adapting to the real needs of the population.

All of these developments thus lead to a structural oversupply of offices and retail space whose conversion remains unnecessarily complicated, blocking a technically and socially relevant transformation.

Why is it a problem that buildings are considered an important financial asset?

Housing is not a commodity like any other, because it responds to a fundamental need: shelter. Yet when it is primarily considered as a financial asset, the logic of profitability takes precedence over its social function.

In this context, the construction of high-end real estate appears more attractive to investors, since it generates high profits and attracts more capital. This mechanism encourages the concentration of property ownership in the hands of the wealthiest households, thus favoring multiple property ownership.

In the long term, this dynamic exerts upward pressure on overall real estate market prices. Instead of improving housing accessibility for the population, it therefore contributes to increasing costs for everyone, exacerbating difficulties in accessing housing for the most modest households.

Will it really be possible to house a Switzerland of 10 million inhabitants without building much more?

Existing buildings could theoretically accommodate about 18 million people and, realistically, at least 14 million. These figures show that the problem is not so much quantitative as related to the organization and use of the housing stock.

It will therefore be entirely possible to house a population of 10 million inhabitants without new constructions, provided that existing dwellings are reconfigured, renovated and available space better distributed.

This decision to limit the area to 20 m² per person would imply implementing mechanisms aimed at reducing inequalities, by ensuring for example that exceeding 25 m² becomes complicated and costly, and that 30 m² is impossible.

How should we (re)think urban densification?

Densification should not be understood as a simple increase in the number of floors (building ever higher) or as a multiplication of new constructions. It should rather translate into a more intensive and smarter use of already built space, with more people, services and functions per square meter.

This would also imply a decrease in the area occupied per person, as well as an overall reduction of built area, given the overconsumption of space observed today. Conceived in this way, densification becomes a tool for optimization and qualitative transformation of the city, rather than a simple quantitative increase in constructions.

So you are among the proponents of greater sharing of living spaces...

Rethinking housing around shared spaces would significantly reduce the average area per person, bringing it down from about 46 to 20 m², without reducing quality of life. On the contrary, this arrangement could improve residents' well-being, strengthen the financial accessibility of housing and increase the flexibility of ways of living.

This decision to limit the area to 20 m² per person would imply implementing mechanisms aimed at reducing inequalities, by ensuring for example that exceeding 25 m² becomes complicated and costly, and that 30 m² is impossible. The choice to occupy a 100 m² dwelling alone would no longer exist. To guarantee a diversity of residential choices, different configurations would nevertheless remain possible, notably the creation of "cluster" dwellings or small individual units, sometimes called "tiny apartments".

Finally, the pooling of spaces would encourage the sharing of everyday objects and activities, simplify childcare and limit social isolation. It would also have the advantage of allowing elderly people to be cared for and to stay at home all their lives, with, if necessary, medical care at home, while being fully integrated into neighborhood life and mutual aid within shared, multigenerational buildings.

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