Description

Background

Up until the 1990s, alleviating the housing crisis was one of the main goals of housing development. In essence, the floor plans in social housing arose from the systematization of statistically recorded requirements: floor area per user, clearance in front of furnishings, space for movement, outdoor spaces etc., were defined by regulations. Such guidelines were the result of a profound belief in a science-based predictability of human requirements for habitation. Concrete assessment of a specific building task, the question concerning living quality and habitation as a fundamental factor for the emotional well-being of people often had to take a back seat to this science-based approach to design and the economic interests associated with housing development. Housing was therefore diminished to the mundane level of simply fulfilling a basic need. Moreover, the strict regulations predefined floor plans to such a degree that they allowed little room for change. Production methods in the housing sector, favouring prefabrication on a mass scale, contributed the rest.

Once the housing crisis had been overcome, the housing question was no longer merely an issue of supply; it was redefined in an entirely new light. The withdrawal of the public sector from the housing market – as active client and restrictive regulatory body – led to a vacuum. Since then housing has undergone a multifaceted paradigm shift.

Change

A wave of individualization across all social strata was set in motion as a result of a trend toward social emancipation in all aspects of life and a liberalization of lifestyles. This led to a confusing multiplicity of ideas on possible housing forms, a multiplicity that could not be satisfied by the existing housing inventory.

Today, the geographic and temporal separation of living and working environments is becoming increasingly obsolete as a result of the significant shift toward a service- and knowledge-based society, especially prevalent in urban contexts, and the increasingly all-encompassing opportunities for media-based interconnectedness.

Aside from the traditional family network as the most common way of life, what we have today is a growing number of single-person households, blended and multi-generational families, cooperative housing projects with integrated services, assisted living and many other forms of cohabitation (figs. 1-2).

But adequate design ideas for these other modes of living is not only what matters; the permanence of a chosen way of life – heretofore simply assumed as a constant – is no longer valid. The possibility of a shift toward other ways of life must therefore be anticipated from the very beginning of the design process. It is precisely this lack of anticipating possible “biographical” shifts with regard to housing that has led to the simultaneous occurrence of housing shortages and vacant housing overstock in many locations; postwar housing developments, in particular, are woefully inadequate when it comes to satisfying the needs of the inhabitants and their requirements for contemporary living and often remain empty despite great demands in the housing market.

City

The renaissance of the city, which began as early as the 1970s, continues. Districts that are close to city centers are increasingly attractive to the upper middle class with a good level of education and income; consequently districts are emerging where urban residents with similar attitudes and lifestyles gather to create a specific social milieu.

The gentrification processes that take place in these situations are alike. Central urban districts, often with a socially and ethnically heterogeneous population and existing buildings that have not been renovated or upgraded, are first appreciated and discovered by the urban bohemia as an area for exploration. The transformations that follow are orchestrated by the real estate sector, which promote these areas as attractive housing locations with lifestyle. The rising housing costs that result from this gentrification trend can lead to rapid social segregation; in such cases, the social housing estates on the urban periphery often become home to geographically confined social milieus, in part with a high potential for conflict.

Urban Building Types

The interest in inner-city living is partially a result of a greater appreciation of the existing historic fabric, since the generous yet relatively undefined floor plans dating back to the nineteenth century seem to offer more flexibility for different lifestyles than postwar housing developments, to name but one example.

New buildings constructed in urban building gaps can provide individual answers to changing living requirements and inspire non-dogmatic solutions on a small scale. Whereas housing typology and building form were still closely attuned to one another in the areas of urban expansion and designs still tended to reflect the pedagogical and ideological program of modernism, the act of designing is subtly liberated from ideology (fig. 3).

The resulting building configurations are closely connected to the characteristics of their urban context. Thus, residential buildings in Japanese megacities, for example, are notable for the minimal number of ancillary functions they offer, since original functions of living such as food preparation, eating, and bathing have been in part “outsourced” to the public sphere (figs. 4-5).

Communities – cities, agglomerations, and villages – are in competition and must court and attract inhabitants; an open contest between housing models such as the single-family house with garden and innovative urban multifamily houses is part of this dynamic. Housing developments such as Borneo Sporenburg in Amsterdam strive for a symbiosis of urban densification and private home, achieving innovative and pioneering floor plan solutions (figs. 6–7).

Specialization

Real-estate markets for housing respond to the growing individualization of lifestyles and have become more complex. Once the housing crisis was overcome, the market shifted from a supply- to a demand-driven market. Since then, an increasing trend toward specialization has been noticeable, which is the result of a more subjective approach to all areas of life in general: the market seeks to highlight unique characteristics in order to motivate the potential buyer to purchase an apartment with the promise of a special lifestyle identity that will be exclusive to him or her. This striving for exclusivity can also lead to a quest for social distance: apartment buildings and housing developments thus become “gated communities,” which define themselves as communities for members from a specific social group and establish firm boundaries to the outside world, in extreme cases with security guards and gates.

However, the drive toward specialization also opens up a range of new possibilities. Apartment buildings that map out new paths can become models for experimentation with new forms of housing. Departing from the realization that it is no longer possible to anticipate how a building will be used, there is an active quest for design ideas that offer open strategies for future uses.

The floor plans that emerge have vertical and horizontal spatial sequences with changing room heights and complex interlocked arrangements of housing units. The atmospheric multiplicity, the playfully composed variety and the irregular geometries that result, create an entirely different impression than the rigidity that frequently characterized the mass-produced structures of classic modernism (fig. 8). In order to expand the choice, a broad range of different apartments – different typologies, sizes, floor plans, and standards – is offered within one and the same project (figs. 9-10). Apartments with several access points allow for divisions or multiple uses. In megablock developments, residential high-rises and hybrid buildings, the residential use is sometimes merely one aspect of more complex programs, with multilayered access structures, customized communal spaces and services (figs. 11–12).

Inhabitants

The diversification of the housing markets also generates designs in which the users are no longer mere consumers of predefined forms of housing but become active participants in the creation of the floor plan – both in the act of inhabiting but also in the development of the buildings.

Ideas on communal living are being formulated. In these usually smaller collaborative housing projects, where the users are also the clients, they assume the economic risks for the project. At the same time, they have the opportunity of adapting the standard and size of their units to their income during the planning and the building stages. They are able to realize individual ideas on living and to form a community even prior to the completion of the building (figs. 8,13). Flexible floor plans with intelligently placed support, access and supply structures allow for individual floor plan solutions.

The more emancipated and active occupants are, the more they are able to recognize the potential of ambiguity in floor plans. In these cases, the floor plan does not determine a specific use; it is ambivalent to such a degree that each user is able to interpret the spatial situation in a completely different manner. Naturally, larger rooms, which are necessary to allow for flexibility in the first place, are an important prerequisite. However, the users must also bring a measure of curiosity to the project and have the ability to envision how they might occupy spaces of this kind (figs. 14-15).

Ambiguous design focuses more on spatial quality than on concrete functions, as well as on the potentials that should unfold through the use of the apartment. The floor plan is a playing field and an inspiration for making it one’s own; the generated environments lie somewhere between the extremes of total freedom and complete determination – ready for use, yet essentially flexible and open with regard to how they will be used.

Usage-neutral buildings generate structures that incorporate the unpredictability of how the property will be utilized in the future, anticipating and allowing for uses that are entirely different than housing, which can then be redefined programmatically and are to a great degree undefined and flexible (fig. 16). One challenge in this context is the question of architectural presence – that is, how residents can identify with a building that is designed to be as “nondescript” as possible. Oftentimes their character is therefore established by the relationship of the rooms to one another, by the facade itself, by the complexity of the development as a whole or by the character of its exterior spaces.

Trends

Floor plan design is faced by other challenges: the ageing population in many societies will need to be reflected in a clear expansion of corresponding floor plan typologies and housing types. The gentrification processes and the segregation of housing districts in many cities and countries will need to be countered through other forms of building and property development, all of which calls for a critical evaluation in relation to society as a whole. Existing buildings, especially those created during the past sixty years, will be increasingly called into question due to the low sustainability of their floor plans, but also in the context of optimized energy efficiency, which is becoming ever more important.

Globally, the focus has also shifted noticeably: given their rapid growth, the Asian megacities have the opportunity, on a large scale, to generate sustainable developments and floor plan designs (fig. 17). More extreme forms of living, such as living in ever-expanding slums that become increasingly established for the long term, conversely, require entirely different strategies, which are based on legalization and participation, stabilize emergent social networks, create necessary infrastructures and employ simple means to provide adequate forms of housing that offer greater quality of life (fig. 18).

Fixed conclusions are an insufficient response to the complexity of these trends. A design approach that aims at constantly identifying questions, opportunities and challenges in a spirit of curiosity is far more appropriate and sustainable. To this end, this book serves as a resource for reviewing all floor plan solutions that have already been invented, built, and inhabited.

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Originally published in: Oliver Heckmann, Friederike Schneider (eds.), Floor Plan Manual Housing, fourth revised and expanded edition, Birkhäuser, 2011.