Description
Which qualities and systems can community-oriented housing promote and how can they be transferred to other countries?
The current discourse on community-oriented housing takes place in a climate of simultaneous boom and bust in the housing situations of our urban cities and rural areas. Single-person households are displacing a sense of belonging to a social group or unit and the architecture of modern housing is more monotonous and faceless than ever. Can the qualities and systems of community-oriented housing make a positive contribution to the vitality of neighbourhoods and municipalities, not just in Germany but also abroad, and if so how? And can that lead to better urban design and architecture in our cities?
The upswing in community-oriented housing over the last 15 years has arisen in spite of, but also in response to a general slowdown in demand for housing. Unlike the conventional “production of housing”, it focuses on self-determined living situations in which the quality of the living environment and community play a central role. In the same period in which not only the quantity but also the architectural quality of conventional housing was stagnating as a result of the saturated market, community- oriented housing projects have brought forth, in Berlin alone, some 140 vibrant models for social and housing communities. A large number of these projects from the last 15 years are also noteworthy examples of good architectural solutions, with innovative floor plans, smart energy concepts, good local outdoor areas and communal facilities for the neighbourhood. Building communities have been and continue to be pioneers of a market that has arisen around them and have in many cases contributed to the positive development of their respective localities.
In the next five years, an estimated million new apartments will be built in growth regions in Germany, and by 2025 this number is expected to rise to more than three million. It is clear today that we must give consideration to the quality of these new dwellings, what they look like and whether they will still be economically viable and marketable 20 years further on, when the population is expected to decline. Research into the demand for collective custom build projects in Berlin conducted around five years ago indicated a proportion of 10% to 15% maximum of the then market. While that is itself a significant number, it also means that at least 85% of homeseekers would prefer to seek accommodation, purchased or rented, on the conventional developer- and landlord-dominated market or else would rather build their own freestanding, self-contained single-family house in the green periphery. It is therefore worth taking a closer look at the positive aspects of community-oriented housing and which of these qualities have the potential to be transferred into other contexts in order to widen their impact.
The qualities of community-oriented housing
Vibrant residential milieus are the product of mixed neighbourhoods, good and diverse social contacts and imaginative architecture. The wish to live in an established, mixed and vibrant neighbourhood is often a motivator for individual, specially developed projects. In many cases the development of such needs-oriented housing projects that are able to accommodate different lifestyles, use requirements and household patterns is initiated by the users themselves. This can apply to a single building or ensemble, as well as to the scale of a block or even local quarter. The development of plots that are unsuitable for or unattractive to speculative developers, the safeguarding of a particular site, or the “creation” of a building plot are often urban objectives that can benefit from user-driven initiatives, for example in the form of a collective custom build project, or as architect- or developer-led projects. Until not long ago, collective custom build projects were often regarded in the realm of politics and local administration, and by banks, as “difficult clients” due to the often-protracted project development phase, the political background or financial uncertainty of the projects. Banks were unwilling to deal with complex and uncertain financial constellations and politicians of all parties were generally of the opinion that the building community model was for rich people and academics with sufficient means and know-how and who therefore needed little support. But that is not the case – community-oriented projects are for the kinds of people we all need in our cities: homeowners, members of co-op associations and tenants who want to live in their apartment and in their neighbourhood and are willing to contribute to the long-term development and stability of their neighbourhood and district. In Berlin, according to a non-representative survey undertaken in 2011 by the Stattbau Network Agency for Multigenerational Living, there is indeed an above-average proportion of 84% academics involved in community-oriented projects. Many of these are, however, low-to-moderate income households whose social potential should be retained and supported through corresponding urban strategies and instruments. In fact, these kinds of socially stabilizing developments that contribute to improving the townscape are highly desirable for all cities, and local municipalities can count themselves lucky when their social composition also includes “true collective custom build projects”.
What sets a “true building community” apart from other constellations has in recent years become what separates the wheat from the chaff. Professional investor-driven or developer-led collective custom build projects are emerging and gradually gaining the upper hand in the booming housing markets of growth regions. But as Kristien Ring points out in her book Selfmade City, which systematically describes and documents the qualities of community-oriented housing in Berlin, the best-quality projects are those that are a product of “truly participative” processes.[1] Aside from the social aspects and the stability they contribute to the neighbourhood through communal facilities, what really sets these apart are the users’ own decisions to invest in more durable materials, better energy concepts, more flexible floor plans and a distinctive architectural expression. Her book therefore ends with the sentence, “the determining factor is not the label, but rather the process”.
Which systems, structures and instruments have proven their worth?
Cities can foster community-oriented housing projects and building communities by providing extensive information and advice. Their key instrument is, however, typically the private-law instrument of land allocation policy. State-owned land, where it is appropriate for community- oriented projects, should be awarded in concept-based allocation procedures in which the land is sold at a fixed price based on its market value and the plots are awarded to those bidders with the best concepts. The criteria for awarding plots are by no means universal and can vary depending on the specifics of the location and the desired positive effects for the development of the neighbourhood, for example family or multigenerational living, the provision of communal amenities, social housing models or specific design concepts. Once municipalities are able to accept the primary criteria of the fixed price sale, there are many qualitative criteria that can be applied to benefit small-scale, mixed localities. Frequently these are social aspects, but for the townscape in particular, the quality of the architecture, or the willingness to conduct an architecture competition, is important. The municipality may anchor this as a statutory obligation of the landowner in the public interest of ensuring the design quality of the city. The building code likewise also emphasises architectural quality.
When collective custom build projects are built on individual vacant infill sites, they typically contribute to the stability of the existing neighbourhood and add to its qualities. The dynamics become especially interesting, however, when the principle is reversed and self-initiated projects are founded in less-desirable locations. Here the question is less how the housing project can benefit from the existing, largely intact environment, than what it can contribute to a quarter in the process of transformation. Here, an individual building community may not suffice; what’s needed is a critical mass of users who are jointly prepared to take on the small risk of pioneering a new location. Where the municipality owns such land, the fixed-price concept-based land allocation procedure is a viable instrument for developing vital, market-oriented quarters using collective custom build projects. In such cases, the intention should be to avoid passing all land into private ownership and to reserve a portion of the land for bodies and organisations that can provide housing for those unable to finance own property for age or income reasons. It is possible to develop new forms of housing and living and to apply the model of community-oriented, self-determined living in the context of a co-op association or rental arrangement with long-term rental periods. A key prerequisite for the principle of community-oriented housing is to have a “fixed point” or “solid basis” at the beginning of the project. This includes the availability of a plot of land, a fixed purchase price as a basis for calculations and sufficient time for preliminary planning between the users, architects, banks, and so on. In Hamburg, for ex amp le, this has been achieved through the instrument of Anhandgabe, an exclusive option period of between 12 and 18 months.
Phase zero, just before the project gets going, is often the decisive moment for the later success of a collective custom build project or co-housing project. This is where the synergies between the users both among one another and with the quarter emerge, where the boundary conditions for the later specifics of the architectural design are laid down, where building standards, communal facilities and the wider environmental contribution of the project are elaborated. Phase zero of collective custom build projects and co-housing projects is often initiated and facilitated by architects. This is significant because architects are no longer involved in the production of much modern housing. In modern housing corporations and building developers, designs are often produced by in-house construction engineers. Likewise the clients of single- family homes very often purchase a finished house design produced by the contractor’s draughtsmen and tradesmen. According to estimates by the BDA Association of German Architects, less than 20% of all housing in Germany is designed by or with the help of architects. Collective custom build projects, on the other hand, are frequently architect-designed, reflecting the search for a coherent architectural expression and the involvement of the respective users and needs in their design. The resulting projects therefore often have a distinctive identity and, whether new building or conversion, make an attractive contribution to the future appearance of the neighbourhood.
Community-oriented housing as a model, here and abroad
Fritz Schumacher’s observation that urban development policy is land allocation policy, made some 100 years ago as he was City Architect of Hamburg, is more relevant than ever. The current discourse on affordable as well as financially viable housing often overlooks the fact that the cost saving potential of collective custom build projects amounts to 20% at most – essentially what usually comprises the developer’s profit margin – and the improved efficiency in building construction of approximately 12% – through prevention of errors – only has a limited effect on rental and acquisition costs. The Achilles’ heel of projects is the land price and the speculation gain lies almost exclusively in the increase in land value. It is only in recent years that collective custom build projects and cultural projects in the creative sector have been able to make local municipalities aware of this relationship. The City of Helsinki only begins to develop a location once it acquires all the relevant sites and does not then re-sell the site after making it accessible and defining the terms of planning permission. Instead it allocates long-term leasehold arrangements. That not only minimises land speculation but also strengthens the urban identity and ensures that the city has the ability to make later adjustments in the interests of the common good should a property change hands. Community-oriented housing in own, long-term ownership or leasehold in the form of collective custom build projects, co-op associations, rental syndicates or through municipal housing corporations could therefore become a symbol of a new urban culture – both here and abroad.
To conclude: which qualities and structures of community-oriented housing are therefore transferable to the general property market? From the viewpoint of the architectural culture of cities, it is primarily those processural aspects that bring about social benefits similar to those offered by building communities, as well as the positive examples of architecture and urban design. Reporting on the Convention of Building Culture in 2014, a property magazine asked pointedly: “Is that building culture, or can we get rid of it?”[2]
In addition to the social and spatial cohesion that they contribute through small-scale additions and developments at the scale of the neighbourhood, community-oriented housing could become a benchmark for an innovative culture of planning and building, and in turn lead to better and more distinctive architecture in our cities.
Footnotes
Originally published in: Annette Becker, Laura Kienbaum, Kristien Ring, Peter Cachola Schmal, Bauen und Wohnen in Gemeinschaft / Building and Living in Communities, Birkhäuser, 2015.