Originally published 2021-01-29.
The Ulmer Nest is a small, insulated sleeping capsule placed on the streets of Ulm, a city in southern Germany, so that people with nowhere to sleep have a dry, wind-proof refuge on the coldest nights. Built by a local group of designers and engineers and tested in public since early 2020, the pods have been praised as a practical way to prevent frostbite and deaths from cold, and criticised as a stopgap that does nothing about the reasons people end up sleeping outside.
Both views have something to them. The pods were never meant to replace a hostel bed or a flat. They were designed for the person who, for whatever reason, will not or cannot go to an emergency shelter on a night when the temperature drops well below zero. Below is what the Nest is, how it works, why it was built, and what the debate around it tells us about winter homelessness in Europe.
What the Ulmer Nest actually is
Each Nest is a compact capsule about the size of a large bed, built from a wooden inner shell and a steel outer body. The combination keeps out rain, snow and wind, and the walls are insulated so that body heat stays inside rather than draining away into the night air. There is room to lie down fully, and the design leaves space for a bag of belongings and even a dog, which matters more than it might sound: many people sleeping rough refuse shelter places because pets are not allowed or because they fear losing their possessions.
According to reporting on the pilot, a Nest can take up to two people. Fresh air is supplied through ventilation so the closed capsule does not become stuffy or damp, and solar panels provide the small amount of energy used for climate control. The group behind the project has said it worked hard on keeping humidity and temperature at sensible levels on a very limited energy budget, because condensation in a cold, sealed space can make a night miserable or even dangerous.
The project is run under the name Ulmer Nest by the Ulm design firm Widerstand und Söhne, with Dirk Bayer, Falko Pross and Manuel Schall credited on the project's own website. It describes itself as a pilot for testing new ways to support the city's existing cold-weather protection, not as a housing programme.
(The Facebook post originally embedded here is no longer available; its text is kept below.)
How the pods connect people to help
A capsule on its own could simply hide a person in danger. The Ulm team tried to avoid that. The pods carry no cameras, which protects the privacy of whoever sleeps inside, but a sensor registers when the door is opened. That signal tells the social workers who look after the Nests that the pod has been used, so they can check on the occupant if needed and clean the capsule discreetly for the next person.
The Nests also use a radio link rather than a mobile phone network, so that someone inside can reach the team overseeing them without needing a working phone or a data plan. The hope from the start was that a warm place for the night could become a first, low-pressure contact with outreach workers and the services they can open up, from medical care to addiction counselling and help with housing applications.
One of the makers, identified as Florian, told Bored Panda that the team kept refining the door so it was easier to use both for sleepers and for the social workers checking in. He also described unexpected kindness, with neighbours providing the overnight guests with hot tea in the morning
, and said that city officials supported the project throughout.
Heute wurden die beiden Ulmer Nester wieder aufgestellt - coronabedingt leider mit Verzögerung, aber gerade noch...
Posted by Ulmer Nest on Friday, 8 January 2021
Why Ulm needed a winter refuge
Germany has a dense network of emergency shelters, and cities have a legal duty to prevent people from becoming homeless without accommodation. Even so, a minority of people sleep outside every winter. Some have been barred from shelters, some are afraid of theft or violence in crowded dormitories, some have dogs, couples may not be allowed to stay together, and some are dealing with mental illness or addiction that makes shared rooms very hard to bear.
For that group, the danger in a Swabian winter is real. Ulm sits on the Danube between Stuttgart and Munich, and night frosts of several degrees below zero are normal from December to February. Hypothermia does not require extreme cold; a wet sleeping bag, alcohol and exhaustion can be enough at temperatures only just below freezing. Every winter German charities record deaths from cold among people sleeping outdoors.
Homelessness in Germany is also larger than street sleeping suggests. The national umbrella group for homeless services, BAG Wohnungslosenhilfe, estimated around 860,000 people without a home of their own in 2016, a figure that included many refugees housed in collective accommodation. Only a small share of those people sleep on the street, but they are the ones most at risk on a freezing night.
The criticism: a sticking plaster?
Not everyone welcomed the capsules. Critics argued that a high-tech box on the pavement makes a deep social problem look solved. In their view, money and attention spent on pods would be better used on social housing, more humane shelters and earlier support for people at risk of losing their homes. Some also worried that the Nests could make it easier for authorities to tolerate rough sleeping rather than end it.
Those concerns echo a long debate in housing policy. Approaches such as Housing First, used in Finland and increasingly in German cities, start from the idea that a stable flat with support attached is the most effective way to get people off the street. Measured against that goal, an emergency capsule is clearly not an answer.
The makers have never claimed it was. They present the Nest as a last option for nights when every other option has failed, a way to keep someone alive until the morning and, ideally, to bring them into contact with people who can help with the bigger problem. Seen that way, the pods and the critics are not really in conflict: the capsule addresses the immediate risk, and the critics are pointing at the structural one.
What other cities can learn from the pilot
The Ulm project offers a few lessons for anyone thinking about similar ideas elsewhere:
- Design around the people who avoid shelters. Room for a pet and belongings, privacy and no cameras address real reasons people sleep outside.
- Link shelter to people, not just to hardware. The door sensor and radio link only work because social workers respond to them.
- Treat it as a pilot. The team returned the pods each winter with changes to doors, insulation and climate control after watching how they were used.
- Keep the bigger picture in view. Emergency capsules are a safety net, and they make most sense alongside housing and outreach, not instead of them.
How you can help someone sleeping out in winter
Most towns do not have sleeping pods, but almost all have a way to alert outreach workers. In Germany, local Kältebus or cold-weather services operate in many cities; in the UK, StreetLink takes reports; in the US and elsewhere, city or county homeless outreach lines do the same job. If you see someone who appears unwell, confused or unresponsive in the cold, call the emergency number instead.
Small acts count too. A hot drink, a pair of dry socks or simply asking whether someone needs anything can make a difference on a freezing night, as the neighbours in Ulm discovered. Supporting local shelters, food banks and housing charities with money or time helps with the longer-term work that the critics of the pods rightly say is needed.
The Ulmer Nest is a modest object: a wooden and steel shell, a sensor and a radio. Its real value is in the idea behind it, that no one should freeze on a city street simply because the usual system did not fit their situation, while the work of finding them a proper home goes on.
Sources: Ulmer Nest (project website); Interesting Engineering: German city tests wind- and waterproof sleep pods; Bored Panda interview with the Ulmer Nest team; Ulmer Nest on Facebook; Positive Outlooks.
COMMENTS