Description

In a perfect world where adequate and workable housing is available to everyone, it would be invidious to single out any particular group with regard to dwelling or accommodation. However, in less perfect yet real worlds, housing for the very poor, for instance, has received focused attention. Among other strategies, sites and services projects amid squatter conditions, evolutionary social housing in response to slum clearance, and heavily-subsidized although otherwise normal-looking housing, all have adherents and practitioners. Certainly, in the last if not other of these circumstances, avoidance of stigmatization of the poor argues for as much ‘normalcy’ as possible, even if it requires inclusions among subsidized mixed-income housing, intergenerational accommodation and dwelling units that cater to different stages in the life-cycle. Failing this, however, providing roofs over people’s heads focuses attention on particular groups in need and dwelling circumstances that fit their needs, with the hope and, indeed, expectation that they might move on to better circumstances. Single-room occupancy hotels, for instance, in the United States for indigent populations on the streets have now become particular building types. Similarly, although more broadly subscribed to, assisted living for the elderly has begun to align certain housing with specific groups. Then too, broad institutional components of society like, for instance, higher education and universities see fit to house students and faculty and to tailor accommodation to the particular needs and, if possible, wants of these groups. Somewhat less commonplace, specific social arrangements of individuals into communities, like collectives for example, have emerged and again tailored housing to their needs and wants. Moreover, given the apparent rise in the diversity of household formations and the emphases, socially and otherwise, on the emergence of particular housing types, a category like ‘housing of special populations’ is understandable. It also comes at a time when individual and social mobility is historically quite high in many places, making the idea of moving from one place to another to suit certain needs more attractive and, ultimately, practical. One result is, of course, more specialized and contingent forms of housing. None of this, however, is entirely without precedent. The almshouses of old, particularly in the wake of the industrial revolution, alongside of institutionalized care for the mentally and physically handicapped, are clear examples. Often, they were built in countryside settings in the belief that clean air and the out-of-doors would serve as a healing balm. Then too, the college houses and even monastic qualities accommodating scholars for periods of time, both have long and ample histories. Clearly a full rendering of all special populations and their housing is far beyond the scope of this narrative. Instead, only broad constituencies like the very poor, the elderly, and student populations will make up the bulk of this account.

Precedents: Recent Social, Student, and Elderly Housing

One of the most prominent social housing projects for low-income, primarily immigrant families was the PREVI (Proyecto Experimental de Vivienda) project in Lima, Peru, that began in 1966 under the United Nations Development Program to devise new concepts and techniques to produce low-cost housing. Work commenced in 1968, largely under Peter Land, with a pilot project and continued well into the 1970s and beyond. The site was eight kilometers north of central Lima with an area of 40 hectares and a target of 1,500 dwelling units of which 467 were built. Early on, schemes were invited for the layout of the master plan, in addition to concepts for the buildings themselves. These included schemes by Atelier 5, a Japanese team of Kikutake, Maki, and Kurokawa, and (probably the most publicized) by Christopher Alexander and his group, based on his ‘pattern language’ and its movement away from reductive planning practices of the day.
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In terms of actual construction, a complex was built by various architects in the form of an exposition, somewhat like Weissenhof or IBA, although for low-cost, evolutionary housing. Lot sizes of 80 to 150 square meters were used, of which dwelling units were to occupy from 60 to 120 square meters respectively. Buildings were of one- and two-storeys but with structures able to handle an additional third floor. Most lots were enclosed behind walls or adjacent building. In short, all houses were to comprise a basic or core unit, but be able to expand through planned additions over time. The housing by the Japanese team was row housing in overall configuration, with setbacks on the first storey allowing for addition of a shop or other commercial space. Expansion was planned upwards. Another scheme by Charles Correa was comprised of units arranged back to front, again with planned upward expansion and setbacks from the building line along the street. Units by James Stirling, by contrast, involved courtyard housing. In all cases, subsequent additions and modifications were made to units by occupants, especially with regard to the appearance or figuration of buildings.

Another notable social housing project, again for low-income occupants, was the Aranya project by Balkrishna V. Doshi for the Indore Development Authority near Bhopal in central India.
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Occupying an 85-hectare site, 6,500 plots were divided into 11 types and income levels, with the smallest having an area of just 35.5 square meters for the economically weakest sector of dwellers and up to 600 square meters for the highest income group. The master plan divided the site into six sectors of housing with a central spine of commercial and institutional areas. In proportion, the plots for the economically weakest segment comprised 65 percent of the total, whereas for the high income groups it was nine percent. Circulation through the site was mainly pedestrian with space also for light vehicles. Piped infrastructure was carefully organized to minimize costly runs and several forms of public open space were provided. Housing units began with a plinth across the site with a latrine, water tap, and kitchen space towards the back of lots, on to which rooms were added. In this evolutionary concept, the metrics of additions were established to facilitate building. Further, entrances, balconies, and other occupiable rooftops provided for views over adjacent streets and open spaces as readily ‘defensible’ space. Raised sidewalks integral to the plinths provided relief from flooding. More generally, the alignment of architectural elements within dwellings conformed to a shape grammar forming a basic code for construction. The result was a variegated and vibrant environment.

Although not for low-income occupants per se, the more recent Housing for the Fishermen of Tyre by Hashim Sarkis evolved over a 10-year period from 1998 to 2008.
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Built for a special group – the Al Baqaa Housing Cooperative alongside of the Association for Development of Rural Areas in Southern Lebanon – the project occupied a small 0.7-hectare site amid date groves some 80 kilometers south of Beirut. Indeed, the broader site environs were occupied well back into antiquity by Romans and even Phoenicians and almost always by seafarers. The project consists of three different interlocking blocks, more or less around a central court, within which there are three different unit types, nominally of 86 square meters in area with an additional 40 square meters of exterior space; outdoor terraces comprise about a third of the units’ total living area. The communal courtyard is spacious and rendered as a safe haven for children’s use. The horizontal lines, broad terraces, and fenestration are very much in keeping with the Lebanese modernist tradition, painted in bright colors according to choices by the architect and the fishermen.

In the United States, another aspect of social housing provision is the ‘single-room occupancy hotel’ and particularly those that were specially built, dating from the 1980s, to house homeless populations in various parts of the country. A well-known complex in San Diego, California, is 202 Island Inn by Rob Wellington Quigley of 1992, built with a subsidy from the Department of Housing and Urban Development on the edge of the city’s Chinese district. During this period, Southern California was attractive to itinerant homeless because of its benign climate and access to social services. Rather than appearing as a particular building type, the Inn responded contextually on its block to three very different street façades. Along Island Avenue – the main entrance – it was scaled to adjacent warehouses. Along Third Avenue, contemporary materials were deployed but scaled to the hotel itself. By contrast, the Second Street façade was colorful and varied in form, responding to and counterpointing the nearby condominium towers and hotel architecture. Comprised of 197 units, the four-storey structure also houses 91 parking places in the basement and retail as well as live-work space and Café 22 on its ground floor. Amenities consist of a reading room, a recreation room, lounges, and a laundry as well as vending area. Units in the form of studio apartments are light and spacious.

Although distinctive in both form and expression, the New Carver Apartments next to the Santa Monica Freeway in South Park, Los Angeles, by Michael Maltzan of 2007 to 2009, demonstrate similar attempts to move away from any stereotypical and tawdry image of a single-room occupancy hotel.
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Its circular shape, with fin-like segments radiating out from the open center, is distinctive and well-scaled to its freeway and warehouse environment. Built for the Skid Row Housing Trust, a long-time supporter of chronically homeless populations, the complex consists of 97 units looping around a 12.5-meter court space, the lower levels of which incorporate non-residential functions, offices, amenities, and a wide stairway as an open communal area. The dwelling units are monastic in quality at 30 square meters in area, but with kitchens. A sixth floor deck at the top of the building is a communal space open to the sky and affording views over the city.

Two prominent contemporary student housing projects are IIT State Street Village by Helmut Jahn of 2004 and Simmons Hall at MIT by Steven Holl of 1999 to 2003.
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The State Street Village is located literally beside the El Train in Chicago and houses 367 students in suites of apartment-style units within three U-shape building masses linked together under a common roof. The space between the housing is set aside as landscaped courts and the overall structure appears to be almost integral with the elevated train line which provides for dynamic glimpses of passing trains. Constructed of poured-in-place concrete, glass cladding, and corrugated stainless steel panels, the housing projects a quasi-industrial aesthetic, with rooftop decks and airy lounges as communal space. By contrast, Simmons Hall is 10 storeys in height in a single-bar building, reminiscent of an Unité some 117 meters in length and only sixteen meters wide. It contains 350 dormitory rooms, along with a multitude of non-residential functions, and features non-orthogonal swooping shafts of space that provide for common areas, light shafts, and an almost Gaudíesque appearance on the inside. The contrast with the insistent orthogonal rhythm of the exterior, as well as other parts of the building, is very striking. The outside skin of the building is a matrix of 0.70-meter square windows, allegedly derived from permeable membranes or sponges, but, in reality, forming an exoskeleton that brings the structural loads together on the outside walls. The dormitory rooms are relatively sparse, with the exception of the gridwork of windows, which on the exterior lends a certain scaleless character to what is a large building.

Living and assisted living for the elderly is in itself a complex and lengthy topic. One project of note is the Wohnfabrik Solinsieme project in St. Gallen, Switzerland, of 2002 by ARCHPLAN AG for the Coop Solinsieme Genossenschaft and its four female founders.
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This is a cooperative in the manner of many in Europe; ‘Solinsieme’ designates living alone and together at the same time. The complex consists of the restoration of an embroidery factory dating from the 1880s, with some additional space, comprising17 flats, each as a freehold unit, with around 20 percent of the residential space set aside for communal spaces, including kitchen facilities, roof terraces, a bar, and two ateliers for pursuing arts and crafts. The flats range in size from 56 to 96 square meters with a variety of floor plans, but all with free-standing sanitary cells placed in boxes in the flats with open kitchens and 3.8-meter-high ceilings, all to add to a feeling of spaciousness. More squarely in the domain of elderly-assisted living is the Kenyuen Home for the Elderly in Wakayama, Japan, by Motoyasu Muramatsu of 2001 for the Tobishima Group in health care.
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Located on a bluff overlooking the Pacific Ocean and designed specifically for fishermen, the complex is intended both in the siting and in the minimalist abstract quality of the architecture to draw the gaze and experience to the spectacle of the seascape outside. A three-storey wellness and care facility, the home provides facilities for intensive care in hospital-like rooms, in addition to flats for more normal occupancy. In short, it deals with end-of-life experiences from well patients to hospice conditions, provisions for which are not uncommon in Japan with its large and rapidly aging population.

Contemporary Cases: from Slum Reparation to Co-op Life

Two projects in distinct contexts addressing low-cost housing and housing for a diverse community are Quinta Monroy and Miss Sargfabrik, enjoined by their respective achievements as exceptional experimental prototypes. The former is located in Iquique, the capital of north Chile, which was formerly a part of Peru until 1879. Bordered by the South Pacific Ocean on the west and the Andes mountain range to the east, the city’s early development was due in large part to the discovery of metals such as silver and copper, and more importantly, of the nitrates in the Atacama Desert that fueled its boom as a settlement. In 1975, Iquique reinvented itself as a fishing port, and later created the ZOFRI – the Zona Franca or the Duty Free Zone to promote foreign trade in copper mining, tourism, and fishing. Since then, the population grew from 73,000 to nearly 200,000 in 2000, shrinking slightly to 186,000 in 2012.
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This zone was developed in the context of the authoritarian political regime that lasted from 1973-1990, and by the time democracy was reclaimed, the country as a whole had a deficit of nearly 1 million affordable housing units. Given that Chile’s population at that time was around 14 million people, the deficit implied that close to 20 percent of the country’s population was residing in shanty towns, deteriorated housing, or overcrowded houses, and approximately 1.2 million illegal settlements had no access to public utilities such as electricity, drinking water, and sanitation in 1990.
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Under the central-leftist Christian Democrat Presidents Patricio Aylwin (1990–1994) and Eduardo Frei (1994–2000), housing programs received a significant increase in government funding and various social programs were launched under a central policy to subsidize housing units and make home ownership affordable even for the poorest of citizens.
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Frei, in particular, made the eradication of extreme poverty one of his key objectives, and a survey conducted in 1996 during his first term in office revealed that 23.2 percent of the population, or some 3.3 million people, continued to live below the poverty line, of which 800,000 struggled with extreme poverty.
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A separate study that same year by the Ministry of Housing and Urbanism and the University of Chile’s Faculty of Architecture identified 972 squatter camps and informal settlements across the country. 105,888 families, equivalent to more than 500,000 people, lived in these settlements. In light of this, the Chile Barrio or the Chile Neighborhood Program was launched, and became the first public policy intervention focused on populations living in extreme poverty in precarious settlements. Apart from housing and infrastructural improvements, the inter-ministerial program also looked into social inclusion, improving job and productive capabilities, and community development. The implementation of the program extended from 1997 to 2007.

As Iquique’s last inner-city campamento or informal settlement located along one of the main north-south arteries of Iquique, Avenida Salvador Allende, and surrounded by industries and the desert range to the east, the Quinta Monroy project was a prototype for low-cost dwellings designed by the ELEMENTAL team in 2003, who had been commissioned by the Chile Barrio Program. ELEMENTAL was in fact an unusual partnership that brought together practitioners, universities, and public as well as private agencies. The consortium included the Harvard University Graduate School of Design, the David Rockefeller Center of Latin American Studies at Harvard, the Universidad Católica de Chile, the Housing Ministry of Chile, and a few construction companies. The aim of the collaboration was to design minimum dwelling units that would allow maximum flexibility over time, while maintaining a broader urban, physical, as well as social cohesion. The residents who had occupied Quinta Monroy were initially highly guarded and suspicious of the development. The challenge here then was not just the mere provision of subsidized housing, but to recreate a viable neighborhood of satisfied homeowners from the campamento. Back in the 1960s, the site was in fact an agricultural area and was used for cattle grazing, but with the expansion of the city this peripheral farming land became incorporated into the urban area, and today constitutes part of central Iquique.

By 1995, under the new democratic regime, the land became the subject of dispute among the squatters, the Monroy family who held the original property rights, the city, as well as the official housing organizations. In resolving the deadlock, the Chile Barrio Program intervened and acquired the property with the intention of transforming it into a social housing project for the original occupants. The conditions were decrepit, and 60 percent of the homes in the labyrinthine encampment had no light or direct ventilation, and were devoid of basic utilities such as access to drinking water, sewage, and sanitation. Each home was constructed of waste packaging material discarded from the city’s port, and covered an area of around 30 square meters. The community was somewhat socially diverse, and the average monthly income for each household was around US$100 (54,000 pesos). The main breadwinners were more often than not the women, most of whom were single parents.
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Hence, it was even more critical to retain these households within the original community so that the women would be able to journey to work conveniently and be able to manage their households. Taking advantage of a new housing policy – the Vivienda Social Dinámica sin Deuda, or Dynamic Social Housing Without Debt (VSDsD) – which provided a voucher in the amount of US$7,500 to each low-income family that typically would not qualify for loans, ELEMENTAL worked around this budget to cover the property acquisition, site development, and the physical construction of each dwelling.
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The design of the housing departed from urban precedents of the single-family detached house on its individual lot, the row house, and the high-rise, selecting instead a parallel housing typology that is based on the possibility of individual expansion over time. The plan thus was intentionally left somewhat “open” and “incomplete”, thereby providing room for growth and self-built additions thereafter, as in the case of PREVI, Lima, which still remains an active construction site. According to Alejandro Aravena of ELEMENTAL, “[they] had to bear in mind that 60 percent of each unit’s volume would eventually be self-built and therefore was unknown to [them] in particulars. The initial building had to therefore provide a supporting, unconstrained framework for improvised construction.”
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Further, residents of Quinta Monroy were involved in the design process in the early stages through workshops and meetings organized by ELEMENTAL where they provided their feedback regarding the distribution of the units, their façades, and their preferences for the common areas.
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The architects thus embarked on the design based on the conformance with two restrictions: (i) each house would have an initial surface area of 36 square meters to ensure that the project would be within the budget, and (ii) each home would be left “unfinished” to allow for future additions in accordance with the needs of each family.
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A total of 93 low-rise dwelling units were thus arrayed in parallel on the site that occupied an area of 5,722 square meters. The preference for low-rise dwellings was also taking into consideration the seismically active nature of the country as a whole, and the housing units formed contiguous borders interlocked with each other and generally defined four semi-enclosed courtyards or “communities”.

ELEMENTAL worked out the most expensive and technically challenging elements of the project, including the basic structure, stairways, service cores, etc., in order to ensure that the self-construction phase would be as easy, economical, and as safe as possible for the homeowners. In fact, the strict building code for the self-construction phase was negotiated with the residents. The houses are thus stacked two levels high on nine-meter by nine-meter lots, with a patio house on the ground floor, and a duplex unit above accessed by stairs above the patio house. The ground floor unit measures six meters by six meters and can expand its width into the adjacent three meters of its lot, and an additional 18 square meters to the back; the duplex which measures three meters by six meters can claim the adjacent three-meters by six-meter-deep bay, yielding a maximum floor area of 72 square meters. In terms of the unit plans, the ground floor primary occupation space for the patio unit is generally open and typically accommodates the living room, dining area, as well as the kitchen and toilet, while the subsequent extension would typically be reserved for more private sleeping quarters. For the duplex, the primary occupation space on the lower level generally opens up to the living/dining area with a kitchen in the area behind the stairs, while the toilets are stacked directly above the kitchen, adjoining the sleeping quarters; the double-storey extensions help to double the living/dining areas as well as serve as bedrooms.

Over time, the other “halves” of the “good houses” were gradually filled in by the tenants. As Alejandro Aravena defines it, what the project tries to attain is a “‘porous’ architecture that depends and thrives on external inputs”.
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To him, an “ELEMENTAL house is ostensibly a home starter kit, an armature, to be filled out with the homeowners’ extensions”.
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This “porosity” translates into a general adaptability where participatory design strategies and layered schemes evolve dynamically, much like Quinta da Malagueira by Siza or the PREVI scheme discussed earlier. After the completion and occupation of the project, the neighborhood is vibrant and retains an overall architectural-urban integrity. The residents, and especially the children, share a close relationship with their collectively owned courtyards that further demarcate a semi-private/public space and one that reinforces a sense of community. These courtyards are in fact not freely accessible to outsiders, and this defined territoriality reinforces the overall safety of the place, furthering the dimensions for family life. In sum, by increasing the building density and retaining the original community as much as possible, Quinta Monroy offers an alternative to the informal settlements endemic to South American cities, ranging from the campamentoes to the barrios, and favelas, and the cheap and substandard housing often associated with low-cost housing. “Social housing,” in their approach, was thus “seen as an investment and not an expense”.
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ELEMENTAL thus found ways in which the initial government subsidy can ultimately enhance the value of the property, while keeping the community on the same plot of land close to the centre of the city. Socially speaking, the project thus maintained the emotional ties within the community, as well as the relationship between the place of living and the places of employment.

The second project, Miss Sargfabrik, is located in Vienna, Austria, which has had a housing history where cost-rent limited-profit housing has played a strong role. The origins date back to the early twentieth century, symbolized by gemeindebau projects such as Karl-Marx-Hof where the apartments are rented from the respective municipality. Similar housing schemes gained currency in the post-World War II era despite trends in public policy and mortgage markets that have promoted more individualized forms of housing consumption. Rental housing at present constitutes 45 percent of the housing stock in Austria, largely with the social sector, including limited-profit rental associations, co-operations, and municipal housing providers, overseeing the housing investment, management, and consumption. In Vienna alone, almost 200 municipal and limited-profit providers account for 48 percent of all dwellings, and this is supported by the Austrian Federal Government’s provision of grants and public loans for affordable cost-capped housing.
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The striking Miss Sargfabrik with its bold orange façade is emblematic of the cost-rent limited-profit housing common in Vienna and was designed by BKK-3 in 1998 and completed in 2000. Like Quinta Monroy, Miss Sargfabrik was committed to participatory design strategies and community engagement: during the two-year planning process, BKK-3 initiated discussions and brainstorming sessions with the 30 to 50 potential tenants to find out their personal desires as well as communal aspirations, and ways in which the building would still be functional in 20 years’ time.
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The social element hence was at the very core of this housing collective.

The residential complex of Miss Sargfabrik is located more specifically in the Penzing District (Fourteenth District) on the western edge of the city, within walking distance to Penzing Station and other nearby underground metro stops, and set within a fabric of perimeter block courtyard houses with abundant green spaces in the form of courtyard gardens, parks, and forests. What is notable about the project is that it is the second of collective residential complexes designed by BKK, the first of which was Sargfabrik, meaning coffin factory, and housed 110 units. The original coffin factory buildings on the site were demolished and the site redeveloped for a communal residential complex which was completed in 1996. Both of these projects were undertaken by the Verein für Integrative Lebensgestaltung (VIL) or the Association for Integrative Living – a body that was founded by a group of people in 1987 who shared a common dissatisfaction with the increasing costs of housing as well as the traditional range of standardized dwellings.
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They thus set up a cooperative building company that would allow them to create a model of “Living–Culture–Integration”, and this autonomy consequently allowed BKK to design and build independently of the real estate market. On joining the cooperative, tenants pay a set amount per square metre as a deposit, which is refunded when they leave. The rental per month includes all the running and heating costs.
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In May 1989, the VIL purchased what was once the largest coffin factory in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Maschner & Söhne, a company established at the end of the nineteenth century that had ceased production in 1970. The success and positive experience of Sargfabrik as a “Village within a City” prompted the Association to purchase yet another piece of real estate just across the street along Missindorfstrasse in 1998, which was redeveloped into Miss Sargfabrik.
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The project covered an area of 850 square meters, and occupied the corner of a perimeter block construction, housing 45 adults and 12 children. The 12-meter-deep building essentially wraps around the site, retaining the integrity and urban design features of a perimeter block while recreating a courtyard within the building with a shared garden, providing an oasis of calm that harkens back to the old Viennese courtyards that are especially renowned in the city’s first district. The covered outdoor entry hall connects the street directly to the courtyard, and stairwells on both ends of the building lead up to the access galleries. In designing the complex, the architects focused on long-term programs, eliminating the notion of sleeping units per se, and created apartments around a pattern of sleeping, working and living. In fact, on the ground level, five units have atelier-like features for home offices, and the open spaces of the small units are developed from the external access corridor. Service cores are arrayed to the center of the party walls together with the staircases, thus yielding additional space efficiencies and organizational flexibilities within the units. The variety of unit plans here was derived by the unusual, angular ways in which BKK-3 determined the party walls as well as the introduction of split-levels within the building. Every second party wall is bent like a splayed ‘V’ so that the apartments are alternately wide at the center and narrower at the glazed front or the other way around, creating a perspective that makes the flats seem larger than they are.
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The units range in size from 30 to 70 square meters, with the intention of including singles as well as families in the project.
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In keeping with the goal of accommodating a diverse community, three of the units are adapted for disabled persons in wheelchairs with the access corridor and entrance of the building designed to be barrier-free, and small apartments called “Flex Boxes” are let to students for a period of one year.
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There are a total of nine floors, including one underground level with three parking spaces, and penthouses at the very top. The first floor is also raised above ground level. The heights of each floor vary from 2.26 meters to 3.12 meters, which are in fact higher than the low ceilings of conventional buildings.
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The spatial structure of the interior is expressed on the façade in the form of folded and expanding ribbons of windows, particularly for the split-levels. Apart from the library, the building also houses BKK-3’s own office, an apartment for teenagers in the care of the Office for Youth and Family of the City of Vienna, a communal kitchen, laundry room, and computer room. These communal spaces are the focal point within the building complex and are situated on the two levels that interlock with entrances at both levels. Within the broader framework of subsidized housing in Vienna, Miss Sargfabrik and Sargfabrik have earned critical acclaim as radical yet highly successful experiments in the contemporary era, although in the longer history of communal housing, compared for instance to those undertaken in the Soviet Union, they are perhaps not as avant-garde as they might appear.

Flexibility, Accommodating Change, and Special Programming

At least three themes run through these examples of housing special populations. They are flexibility, dealing with change, and special programming. Here, flexibility refers to being able to simultaneously accommodate multiple use, often within small spatial confines. It also refers to accommodation of different dominant and subordinate functions through a relatively focused spatial environment like, for instance, work-live circumstances. In addition, it can imply deployment of a number of circumscribed uses and accompanying spaces to be used in various combinations. The more or less constant constraint is the amount of space available, which is typically relatively small. One useful provision is often reasonably capacious, or one might say, over-provided space within a complex, such as large terraces or similar, as in the Aranya low-cost housing or the Fishermen’s Housing in Tyre, where otherwise unexpected activities can take place. Similarly, the larger central area in the New Carver Apartments can fulfill that purpose. Communal spaces and wider circulation areas can also fulfill the same sort of function. Accommodation of different dominant functions at different times clearly needs to go beyond simply re-arranging the furniture and take up with carrying over space from one set of activities to another as an important ingredient. As at Simmons Hall and IIT State Street Village, for instance, it can also be shifted out into the communal study areas in live-work circumstances. Then again, it can also be handled by the provision, in both student housing and the single-room occupancy hotels, of an array of specific spaces among communal and associated circulation areas, potentially providing for considerably flexible environments for use by residents. It does require those using them, however, to feel comfortable in moving out into some of the less private spaces of a complex.

Particularly among the examples of social housing presented here, the accommodation of change over time in the spatial composition and size of dwelling units conforms largely to an evolutionary process, whereby an initial core of spaces provided in a dwelling unit can be expanded through planned additions. In the Aranya housing, the Quinta Monroy housing, and most of the PREVI projects, this is a key component and takes place by simply filling in a basic spatial framework or extending it either upwards or outwards. One issue of concern is overbuilding through which the ventilation of courtyard houses, for instance, can be impaired with subsequent deleterious public health effects. Another is creation of problems of access and overshadowing from neighboring units in a tightly-planned complex. A third concern can also occur around the metrics of the core building and its extensions in manners that are either easy or difficult to accommodate with subsequent additions. Efforts must be made in each context to accurately gauge the ‘delta function’, or likely size and material character of additions, in a manner that facilitates building but without deleterious overbuilding. Both in the Aranya housing and the Quinta Monroy projects, this is an issue and appears to be well handled. Similarly, communal open space needs to be provided and shaped in a manner where there is clear jurisdiction and corresponding responsibility for maintenance. Unfortunately, ‘no-person’s lands’ quickly become that – ‘no-person’s lands’. Again, the study of circumstances in nearby settlements can prove to be useful, as it was in both Aranya and Quinta Monroy. Then, with regard to the accommodation of change, the matter of what changes and what remains fixed and static rather quickly comes to the fore. The project utility infrastructure in housing for the very poor, for instance, is critical for minimizing both its length and therefore cost, as well as to ensure that branching and distribution are sufficient to support subsequent phases of development. Again at Aranya housing, this was a very basic and important set of decisions. Indeed, with regard to sites and services provisions of housing, studies as far back as John Turner, Horacio Caminos, and Reinhard Goethert have dwelt heavily on this issue.
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In the cases of assisted living and unorthodox cooperative arrangements of housing and community life, as at Miss Sargfabrik, special programming plays a particularly important role. By this is meant inclusion of particular facilities or functional spaces that reach well beyond the normal brief of housing. In the case of assisted living, wellness and care facilities are important components, as are hospital-like rooms and even hospice accommodations for those with terminal illnesses. For the cooperative living complexes, what other programmed spaces are included is often a matter of resident choice and requires substantial dialogue with designers. Among others, the two ateliers at Wohnfabrik Solinsieme in Switzerland are perhaps surprising as are parts of Miss Sargfabrik and particularly the way space was rendered there inside the building, using sloping floors and angled walls. Especially in the Japanese context, where elderly populations and their housing is on the rise, the sheer location of facilities and the environmental ambience they are both placed in and place emphasis upon are significant factors. Clearly, wellness and care extends beyond immediate physical treatment and into the realm of the mind and its respite and serenity. This is particularly evident in the Kenyuen Home for the Elderly and its retired fishermen contemplating the rugged coastline of what was once their domain of active life. Similarly, although very differently realized, the buffering of the rail line at IIT State Street Village offers a particular ‘view’ or ‘scene’ that is germane to its student inhabitants, as are its airy lounges and roof decks. A sense of an ambience is also created at Miss Sargfabrik with the angled geometries of rooms, sloping floors, and walls. Although not necessarily for everyone, this very particularized milieu projects a specific version of intergenerational living that is distinctive and deliberately different from more run-of-the-mill examples.

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Originally published in: Peter G. Rowe, Har Ye Kan, Urban Intensities: Contemporary Housing Types and Territories, Birkhäuser, 2014.