Happy Housing

Easing the stress in verifying apartments in Munich for ALL students.

The Problem

It is very difficult for international students and foreigners to find reliable information about apartments in Munich. In addition, existing platforms do not provide up-to-date information on the accessibility status of the advertised apartments making it even more difficult for people with certain movement impairments to make a concrete decision on what apartment to book leaving them in uncertainty.

The Solution

Together with my project partner, Gisela Romero Candanedo, we built an interactive Web GIS platform for collecting data on housing accessibility, prices and experiences (as emojis) from existing students and publishing it with the aim of minimizing the pitfalls that may arise in the apartment seeking process for international students and foreigners. The Web Portfolio is also published on the TUM International M.Sc Cartography website.

Video Demo

See how it works

How we built it

As real data was needed, a google form for collecting addresses was designed. Accessibility criteria and prices from our classmates were collected. In parallel, a set of “dummy data” was created for testing ideas. Subsequently, we developed a spatial database using PostgreSQL/PostGIS. This was necessary for the development of a backend using PHP, and HTML, CSS, JavaScript for the frontend. Leaflet JS library is the main engine for the map display. Finally, the result was tested and presented to our classmates for feedback.

Challenges we ran into

Our data collection needed to adhere to data protection regulations in Germany. Also, we received little data from all intakes and data that was not included in the study area. Therefore, we had to build a form integrated into the web application for continuous and onward live data collection.

What we're proud of

Aesthetically, we are content with the simplicity of overview, look, feel and design of our application. Comparing our initial ideas with the final result makes us feel just like our happiest emoji. We are confident that other users would find it user very user-friendly.

What we learned

We learned the use of programming for implementing an interactive web map, the workflow to get a successful geocoding, and all other aspects a cartographer may consider for achieving inclusiveness.

What's next

We would appreciate getting more data from the TUM community and we are open to joining hands with any innovation-oriented initiative or organization that would like to help push our idea for further development.

Sources

[1] TUM in figures (2022). Technical University of Munich. Retrieved 19.01.2023 from
https://www.tum.de/en/about-tum/facts-and-figures/tum-in-figures
[2] Accommodation in Munich (2022). Retrieved 19.01.2023 from
https://www.expat.com/en/guide/europe/germany/munich/11561-accommodation-in-munich.html
[3] House hunting: How to find apartments or houses in Munich (2021). Retrieved 19.01.2023 from
https://www.muenchen.de/en/living/house-hunting