Social Housing in Brasil (Podium renders)
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I'm a big fan of Richard Rogers' social housing designs. These are a nice example;
http://news.architecture.sk/2007/10/145-inteligent-prefab-modules-houses-by.php
I'm slightly worried though about what some class as "sustainability", using cheaper, more readily available materials as a basis for "good design". You can't use cheap materials, because after 10 years, they need replacing. That's why we need mass production, so that well designed and built houses can be sustained. The German Huf Haus is a prefab design, but these are mostly bespoke, and don't use off the shelf components, making them very expensive to construct and erect. A well designed and mass-produced solution is what is really needed, and not a sticking plaster (which is often the case in Britain for eg, largely because of architectural idiots such as Prince Charles!).
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@sepo said:
Saying that flats are bad is quite brave comment.
Well it's true. Flats are bad!
Do you want to live in a house where you can hear a car being revved up underneath, while someone else has loud sex above you? Would you like a garden for your children and would you like not to have to carry every single bag of shopping up the stairs one at a time? Of course you don't! Flat's are a bad invention!
In England we need to stop moaning about the environment (despite that 70% of land is actually owned by the aristocracy), and build on both brown and green sites. We have a really bad housing crisis in the UK, where few can get on the property ladder. Heck my brother-in-law cannot afford a house, and he and his wife are both solicitors!
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@tfdesign said:
Well of course, and this is probably another really good reason that social housing shouldn't necessarily be cheap or badly built either. You get mould because wood is either badly treated, or it is in contact with the floor, causing rising damp, and judging by that photo you have provided, that's hardly surprising!
Well I could supply a never ending bunch of pictures, some of which would be of the same house that would be in a residential neighbourhood off reserve (sometimes only blocks away), same house design typical era 50's 60's houses in Canada. One in disrepair, one in fine shape.
Why. Social context perhaps, extreme poverty, lack of proper healthcare, poor education standards, etc. etc. etc.
The United Nations in all of their development projects, have recognized for quite a while, that in order to be successful, projects must adhere to Triple Bottom Line Accounting. Think of it as a three legged stool. One leg is Social, one leg environmental, and the third is financial. Cut one of the legs off and the stool can't stand.
If there is any element missing quite often, at least in Canadian Social housing, it is the recognition that housing alone is not the answer.
This is where I think there is potential in this design to allow residents to take the parking space in question, and adapt it to their needs. Quite different in my view from the government building, and the residents having no say in what the outcome is. -
tfdesign
@unknownuser said:As a Serbian, I'm rather shocked that you don't think this exists in our modern world, especially as your own country used to be part of the Soviet Union?
My country was never part of SSSR. Internet is a good thing. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0070758/An example of contemporary social housing:http://www.flickr.com/photos/89707735@N00/36232682/ Showing this because there is a beautiful movie about this building somewhere on net. There are much more social housing examples.
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@srx said:
An example of contemporary social housing:http://www.flickr.com/photos/89707735@N00/36232682/ Showing this because there is a beautiful movie about this building somewhere on net. There are much more social housing examples.
Sorry, but I think you are missing the point. I am not talking about beautiful buildings, I am talking about the practicalities of living in them.
Do you live in such a building?
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"Well it's true. Flats are bad!"
You may repeat it million times but it will still not make it true.
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An example of contemporary social housing:http://www.flickr.com/photos/89707735@N00/36232682/ Showing this because there is a beautiful movie about this building somewhere on net. There are much more social housing examples.
...not beautiful building, but beautiful movie about this design.
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@sepo said:
"Well it's true. Flats are bad!"
You may repeat it million times but it will still not make it true.
Well instead of just laughing, why don't you make a case? So far you haven't made a case at all.
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very nice input. what render engine did you use on this?
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@srx said:
An example of contemporary social housing:http://www.flickr.com/photos/89707735@N00/36232682/ Showing this because there is a beautiful movie about this building somewhere on net. There are much more social housing examples.
...not beautiful building, but beautiful movie about this design.
I'll try and find it. But I still think you are making a case for beauty of design as opposed to practicality. I mean Le Corbusier made beautiful houses, but many had corridors that only the thinnest could live in, making them cramped and not very well designed.
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@ckosio said:
very nice input. what render engine did you use on this?
I think it may be a good time to split this topic? Moderators?
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This is rarely good series of movies about architecture.
And this is the one about Jean Nouvel social housing mentioned before: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Agdt4go7EUY&feature=related
And it is beautiful in a broader sense. -
Thanks
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Tom
Mate I live in an apartment (flat) actually by choice! I love it, I feel secure, more part of a community, have access to shared facilities and no maintenance hassles. So yes some do it out of choice!
I visited singapore recently where somewhat similar style of social housing are common, the lower floor as in the case of Edson's design is most often utilised as hawker centres - small market style eating halls that actually encourage a healthy level of social activity. They are vibrant areas and have become integral to their way of living and for me something I almost wish for here!
My issue with this style of design isn't so much this ground level space but the missed opportunity to effect the loss of security above ground. The balcony / access that runs the perimeter meaning people pass one's door / windows where opportunity to become a criminal is almost encouraged. Not all criminal behaviour comes out of necessity, it just as often comes out of opportunity.
I understand it could be that is is just simply an accepted norn, I just question if this something that could be improved.
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@richard said:
Mate I live in an apartment (flat) actually by choice! I love it, I feel secure, more part of a community, have access to shared facilities and no maintenance hassles. So yes some do it out of choice!
I think if you are young and single perhaps a flat is okay, but for families with several people all living under one roof, it can be tough? In Britain there is a tendency to house those from difficult or poorer backgrounds in flats, and it hasn't worked.
I live in a small 2 up 2 down, the follow on from the Back to Back house. It would be a 3 bedroom if the bathroom was downstairs, but because it is not, it's a pokey little 2 bed, sitting behind Birmingham's "curry belt", and full of rats and cockroaches. We really wish we had a garden- it has a 'yard' which is just big enough to house a couple of rubbish bins. Ideally I'd love the whole of this area to be bulldozed (that's a pretty radical statement!), and somebody like Richard Rogers (or all the young architects currently leaving university and moving abroad) to come in and completely redesign this part of the city, but it ain't gonna happen- as they say. Victorian architecture was beautiful once, but most of it has had its day, and it looks tired now.
I wish Edson the best of luck, and I hope his project turns out well after all.
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Perhaps it would enliven the discussion if people were to post links to what they consider to be 'fit for purpose' social housing, perhaps with the ecology and energy conservation in mind.
Many of the enlightened initiatives seem to be coming from Housing Trusts, and many of the disasters from local authority council housing developments. We have such a disaster in Oxford (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackbird_Leys).
This seems a good example of what can be achieved:
http://www.sustainablebuild.co.uk/EcoHousingUK.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BedZED
Regards,
Bob -
edson, i like the work.
regarding this:
@tfdesign said:
I'm a big fan of Richard Rogers' social housing designs. These are a nice example;
is there a social context to which those shapes / colors / proportions / windows / facades fit into?
will those materials age gracefully? are they easy to maintain? will that curtain wall age gracefully and keep water out? when a panel fails - will common, easy to find materials be available to make repairs?
is it a norm to not have 'defensible space' in the fronts of houses like this?
are the interiors as sterile as the exteriors? will inhabitants be living in some sort of IKEA box?
are people comfortable in the front - or do they hang out in the back yard (if there is one behind that fence)?
will there be more trees?
is this on a street with auto traffic, or pedestrian traffic?
is the plaza or street sterile? (looking pretty sterile in its current form).
can owners personalize the units?
why not integrate lighting into the units? or do the social aspects of this area include living with parking lot style lights above one's head?just some questions. those aren't very warm or inviting. i can see a graffiti'd version of these with broken windows, broken down cars, and broken windows not far into the future.
if the owner's don't have a stake, or a say, in how their environment looks / feels / is used / etc... its likely that they will have little respect for their surroundings. this was part of the problem of the housing issues from the 60s on in the states. herd people like cattle into housing that 'the experts' designed and programmed.
i'm much more interested in the approach of the rural studio, started by sam mockbee in georgia. i wish i had known about the program before i jumped into a hi-tech, theory based grad program staffed by marquee named architects in a big city...
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