Uta Gelbke

Dr. Uta Gelbke is an architect and freelance architecture journalist affiliated with the University of Wuppertal, where she has worked as a research assistant and lecturer at the Chair for Building with Existing Contexts and Building Construction since 2018. Her academic work focuses on the historical and architectural analysis of terraced houses, particularly their evolution during the post-war period in Germany and Switzerland.

• Studied architecture in Germany and Australia
• Worked in architectural offices in Sydney and Melbourne
• Freelance author for architecture and urban development since 2015

Gelbke's research explores terraced housing as a response to post-war housing shortages, emphasizing their adaptation to topography (slope following/forming), spatial efficiency, and sociological implications. She led a project documenting ~100 terraced house examples across Germany, including case studies in Wuppertal (Nützenberger Straße, Birches residential complex), and collaborated with the University of Stuttgart on sociological analyses of resident satisfaction.

Her work bridges architectural history with contemporary challenges in renovation, land use, and public housing, highlighting modern projects like the Klencke residential building in Amsterdam. Gelbke also critiques the decline of publicly subsidized housing as a barrier to innovative architectural typologies.

She teaches at the University of Wuppertal and utilizes digital tools like Google Earth for architectural documentation.