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In 2010, Berlin still had as many as 180,000 empty flats. Maren Kern called for new housing to be built anyway - vacancy had dropped below the level at which a rental market can function - and, she says, was dismissed as mad. Fifteen years on, the cost of that delay is visible across the city.

In episode 7 of The Constructivist, Wulf von Borzyskowski speaks with Kern, Member of the Executive Board of the BBU (Verband Berlin-Brandenburgischer Wohnungsunternehmen), about the long lead times of housing, the limits of regulation, and how innovation moves from isolated pilot projects into the standard way of building.

Complexity is a recurring theme. Before the turn of the millennium, Germany had around 5,000 building regulations; today there are well over 20,000. Kern describes a system trying to regulate every individual case, while projects grow slower, more expensive and harder to deliver.

The conversation is not only about what blocks housing. Kern also discusses timber construction, digital planning and automation, and the need to bring these into everyday practice faster. If housing has a lead time of five to ten years, she argues, the industry cannot wait for a crisis to become visible before it changes how it builds.

Maren Kern has sat on the Executive Board of the BBU since 1 August 2009. The association represents housing companies across Berlin and Brandenburg, covering around 1.1 million homes. Kern studied law and architecture, practised as a lawyer, and served as the BBU's legal counsel before leading its subsidiary Domus Consult.