Inside out: social housing at Southfield (original) (raw)
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Social rental housing siting & maintenance: Considering the architect's critical role
ARCC-EAAE
In several countries across the globe, social rental housing (SRH) is lost for a variety of reasons. In Nigeria, SRH, a housing type typically associated with the most disadvantaged people in the society, is lost due to reasons predominantly associated with siting and maintenance (Daniels-Akunekwe & Sinclair, 2018). Although, SRH constitutes just over 5% of the total housing stock, a significant amount of these developments are still lost. To address these issues, in several contexts-including in Nigeria, the responsibility is accorded the architect, who is considered the chief culprit. This is because historically architects have been charged with overseeing building processes from inception to completion; their responsibility spanned beyond the breadth of the structure's aesthetics through to successful construction and even liability for its failure. Now, the profession has morphed into one of intense specialization, where the role of the architect seems to be reduced to design-the role of a "shaper"… of "form-giver" (Franck, 2017). Leaving architects to placate themselves with the opinion that designing is at the core of all things building, while being painfully aware that this is a "mere shadow of the competencies" they command, and a demotion from their roles as master builder and "generalist-practitioner" (Franck, 2017). With the progressively narrowed/narrowing role of the architect, and the absence of a universally outlined description of the architect's obligations, it is difficult to establish in certain circumstances (where buildings are considered unsuccessful) the extent of involvement in the problem for which the architect is liable (Daniels-Akunekwe & Sinclair, 2019a). It is our suggestion that the characteristic extremely limited budget of SRH projects should confer on the architect, the additional responsibility of artist, researcher and anthropologist… to not only design an adequate, affordable, and aesthetically pleasant development but one that considers the location, and post-construction life, with equal intensity. Therefore, riding on this reasoning, we select four SRH developments situated in non-poor (both middle and high-income) neighborhoods in Lagos city, Nigeria. These cases were selected because despite being located in 'choice' neighborhoods, the specific sites combined with a non-existent/non-effective maintenance management program have proved unfavorable and unbeneficial to its occupants, the surrounding residents, and to the neighborhood as a whole. By deploying mixed methods including literature investigation, interviews, and phenomenology, the study seeks to define to which extent siting and maintenance are related to the profession of the architect.
8. Concrete Does not Cry: Interdisciplinary Reflections on and Beyond Housing
2020
Here they are, ready to talk to us: two young professionals, an architect and a civil engineer, who go well beyond established boundaries of their disciplinary backgrounds. They reach out, experiment, and innovate. The focus of their work: end users, beneficiaries, dwellers, inhabitants, simply people. Both include the human element into professional fields primarily dominated by technical details, figures, and formulas. Although the importance and contribution of social disciplines to their fields are yet to be recognized, they concentrate on the importance of human interaction, communication, and community. Out of personal interest and professional curiosity, they apply interdisciplinary research methods. They go against the flow, visit archives to learn more about the history of the construction environment in their own countries. Or they include elements of self-reflection into architecture classes after a field trip to South Africa with students. The idea behind this contribution arose out of a perceived need to balance the academic chapters in this book with a more practice-based, practical approach. We wanted to integrate the richness of observation of those who spend most of their time on construction sites rather than in archives or libraries. Nevertheless, academia is not at all foreign to our interviewees. Both authors professionally ended up where they are now by mere coincidence. Nicholas Sungura is a Kenyan civil engineer, with professional experience gained while working for a public institution mandated with infrastructure development in his country. Dreaming once of a career as a medical doctor, engineering turned out to be only his second choice. He concluded his doctoral research on risk management in public infrastructure projects at the Leibniz University of Hannover and currently works in Germany as a risk manager for a leading railway service provider. Marlene Wagner is an Austrian architect who has spent a great deal of her professional career implementing design-build projects in South Africa, also more or less by coincidence. She is a co-founder of a successful NGO called buildCollective and works as a part-time lecturer at a number of universities. Both left their known/familiar surroundings to develop their professional potential and skills abroad.
Housing - A Critical Perspective
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and the scholarly journal and research group Architecture_MPS. It forms part of a UK based broader program of international events and publications organized around this theme by Architecture_MPS called Housing-Critical Futures. Running over three years from 2015-2017 further events are planned in the UK, Spain, Cyprus, Mexico, the United States, Australia and elsewhere. These will be accompanied by publications and other related activities. This conference in Liverpool represents the first of these academic events.
Housing Design Innovations Delivered Under the National Social Housing Initiative
The Social Housing Initiative (SHI) formed part of the federal government's response to the Global Financial Crisis and represented the largest one-time investment in social housing by any government in Australia's history. This paper examines the built results of the SHI, with the analysis focused on housing design and procurement outcomes. Public housing redevelopment is an opportunity for innovation and market leadership in affordable housing design and delivery. While the SHI's primary objective was to provide jobs in the construction industry at a time of potential economic crisis, this paper reveals that good quality innovative housing outcomes were achieved. However these were more a chance by-product of the process rather than a strategic intention. The vast majority of projects delivered in Melbourne, for instance, were 'business as usual' 2-for-1 dual occupancy developments. Given the magnitude of the SHI building program, this outcome can be considered a lost opportunity and an underutilisation of public investment (financial and land). This paper provides a survey of individual developments that did show innovation, illustrating through spatial analysis how quality housing and urban outcomes can be achieved within constrained social housing scenarios. The design innovations were often simple but well executed strategies, focusing on efficiency of internal apartment/unit planning, arrangement of tenancy mix/social diversity, interfaces of private dwellings with common areas and public spaces, parking arrangements, design of common areas, and addressing privacy and noise through landscaping and careful planning. The paper also describes the critical role that procurement methods play, particularly creative/nonstandard approaches to partnerships and financing, in delivering innovative design outcomes. Factors leading to innovation included the involvement of Community Housing Organisations who could access alternative land and funding sources, offer design and delivery expertise and facilitate mixed tenancy outcomes, alongside the relaxation of selected planning controls, and project alignment with existing urban renewal strategies.
Enhr 2010 Proceedings of the 22nd International Housing Research Conference Urban Dynamics and Housing Change Crossing into the 2nd Decade of the 3rd Millennium, 2010
Thi,s paper is an ethnographic øccount of how 'wickecl' (i.e. entrenched and enduring) problems wilh lhe 'building, .filling and bíllínç' of public hou,síng høve shaped ctnd influenced the work of publíc housing workers in Victoria, Austt'qliq. With a.few exceptions, the .front line work of housing str{f is represe ted ¡n the literalure as smaller, constituent pdrls of sone lørger polícy process, otgonísational evenl or procedural reform. In order ro understand how housing work has been conslructed over l¡me, this papet dltempts to consol¡dqte lhese fr'øgmented narrot¡ves (contained in old documents, trq¡ning mqnudl$ news arlicles and rcports) into .tn llistoricql .rccounl of 'what ¡t wqs like' to work in lhe public/social housing sector. h1 this paper, I will confïasl this 'hislorícql eccounl' wilh llrc stories I gathered (,ver lwelve mon.ths of ./ield work in tlree different public housìng ofices. In their stories, public housing workers tell me how .subtle oncl incremenlal hds been the change to their work, how increasingly complex ru'e the needs of tenants ond how dfficult ¡heir work has become. The¡ stories illustt'ate lhe complexity of underslanding and ødclressing these 'wtcked' housing pt'oblems when tenants change, staffchange and the publíc housùrg sector has a ltisloty of.frequent 'restructuring'. This contextuctlisation of 'old and new stories' will allow the reader to understand how the orgalisationql realily of present clay housÌng work has been socially constt-uctecl ('sedítnented') by gcnerat¡on,\ of workers, mqnqgeìx qnd tenqnts.