António Ferreira, K. C. von Schönfeld, Fanny Augis, Paulo Conceição
This research focuses on examining how the pursuit of economic growth can contribute to urban shrinkage. In contrast to the prevalent definition of urban shrinkage that links population loss to insufficient levels of economic growth, this study examines the case of Coimbra, Portugal, where something different is happening. We hypothesise that Coimbra experiences population loss due to urban policies that promote economic growth through housing speculation. We conclude that the hypothesis is valid using semi-structured interviews and document analysis as data collection methods. The identified phenomenon disproportionately affects younger and vulnerable residents, forcing them to relocate due to unaffordable housing options. However, it benefits the local authority and national government, which collaborate with global economic powers that invest in real estate to accumulate capital. The conformist and legalistic-bureaucratic nature of the Portuguese planning system, evident in Coimbra’s local authority, exacerbates the problem. We emphasise the potentially transformative impact of economic degrowth thinking on housing policy. The implications of this research question the validity of mainstream economic theory as commonly applied to urban planning.
{"title":"Shrinking Cities for Economic Growth? Insights From the Housing Sector","authors":"António Ferreira, K. C. von Schönfeld, Fanny Augis, Paulo Conceição","doi":"10.17645/up.7721","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.17645/up.7721","url":null,"abstract":"This research focuses on examining how the pursuit of economic growth can contribute to urban shrinkage. In contrast to the prevalent definition of urban shrinkage that links population loss to insufficient levels of economic growth, this study examines the case of Coimbra, Portugal, where something different is happening. We hypothesise that Coimbra experiences population loss due to urban policies that promote economic growth through housing speculation. We conclude that the hypothesis is valid using semi-structured interviews and document analysis as data collection methods. The identified phenomenon disproportionately affects younger and vulnerable residents, forcing them to relocate due to unaffordable housing options. However, it benefits the local authority and national government, which collaborate with global economic powers that invest in real estate to accumulate capital. The conformist and legalistic-bureaucratic nature of the Portuguese planning system, evident in Coimbra’s local authority, exacerbates the problem. We emphasise the potentially transformative impact of economic degrowth thinking on housing policy. The implications of this research question the validity of mainstream economic theory as commonly applied to urban planning.","PeriodicalId":51735,"journal":{"name":"Urban Planning","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.8,"publicationDate":"2024-04-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140663887","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This editorial introduces the articles in this thematic issue, which bridge the gap between technical housing standards, design practices, and socio-cultural norms.
这篇社论介绍了本期专题中的文章，这些文章弥合了住房技术标准、设计实践和社会文化规范之间的差距。
{"title":"Housing Norms and Standards: The Design of Everyday Life","authors":"Sam Jacoby, Seyithan Özer","doi":"10.17645/up.8339","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.17645/up.8339","url":null,"abstract":"This editorial introduces the articles in this thematic issue, which bridge the gap between technical housing standards, design practices, and socio-cultural norms.","PeriodicalId":51735,"journal":{"name":"Urban Planning","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.8,"publicationDate":"2024-04-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140670298","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
In this article, we explore the changing ways in which the homeless body has been conceptualised by architects and providers of accommodation for single homeless individuals. Tracing developments from the post-war period to the present, we focus on the needs and characteristics of single homeless individuals as they are variously imagined and constructed through the architectural design process. Through detailed examination of the life course of the Ryder & Yates-designed Salvation Army Men’s Social Services Centre, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, UK, we explore how conceptions of the homeless body—shaped by, inter alia, architectural references, professional orthodoxies, and prevailing ideologies of homelessness—influenced the lived experience of the building. In so doing, we bring renewed attention to the capacity of architectural design to generate and shape the affective responses of the single homeless body, and thus the architectural profession’s vital role in tackling the homelessness problem.
{"title":"Manifesting the Imagined Homeless Body: A Case Study of the Men’s Social Services Centre, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, UK","authors":"Oliver Moss, Adele Irving","doi":"10.17645/up.7842","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.17645/up.7842","url":null,"abstract":"In this article, we explore the changing ways in which the homeless body has been conceptualised by architects and providers of accommodation for single homeless individuals. Tracing developments from the post-war period to the present, we focus on the needs and characteristics of single homeless individuals as they are variously imagined and constructed through the architectural design process. Through detailed examination of the life course of the Ryder & Yates-designed Salvation Army Men’s Social Services Centre, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, UK, we explore how conceptions of the homeless body—shaped by, inter alia, architectural references, professional orthodoxies, and prevailing ideologies of homelessness—influenced the lived experience of the building. In so doing, we bring renewed attention to the capacity of architectural design to generate and shape the affective responses of the single homeless body, and thus the architectural profession’s vital role in tackling the homelessness problem.","PeriodicalId":51735,"journal":{"name":"Urban Planning","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.8,"publicationDate":"2024-04-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140671873","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This article contends that envisioning the future of housing planning in post-socialist cities necessitates the acknowledgment of a pressing reality: Many societies are undergoing rapid aging and depopulation. Latvia’s capital city of Riga, the focal point of this study, stands at the forefront of these global trends. However, due to entrenched neoliberal practices that idealize youthful, robust, and entrepreneurial residents, considerations of aging are conspicuously absent from urban planning visions. Drawing on ethnographic research conducted in the capital city between 2021 and 2023, this article establishes a link between urban lived experiences while aging and the intersecting dynamics of housing. The critical analysis is informed by data derived from observations, conversations, media sources, official discourses, and perspectives gathered through expert interviews. Ultimately, this article advances an agenda aimed at urging people to think about more hopeful futures for aging in cities, an issue of paramount significance in the post-socialist societies of the 21st century.
{"title":"(Post-)Socialist Housing and Aging in Neoliberal Riga","authors":"Aija Lulle","doi":"10.17645/up.7705","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.17645/up.7705","url":null,"abstract":"This article contends that envisioning the future of housing planning in post-socialist cities necessitates the acknowledgment of a pressing reality: Many societies are undergoing rapid aging and depopulation. Latvia’s capital city of Riga, the focal point of this study, stands at the forefront of these global trends. However, due to entrenched neoliberal practices that idealize youthful, robust, and entrepreneurial residents, considerations of aging are conspicuously absent from urban planning visions. Drawing on ethnographic research conducted in the capital city between 2021 and 2023, this article establishes a link between urban lived experiences while aging and the intersecting dynamics of housing. The critical analysis is informed by data derived from observations, conversations, media sources, official discourses, and perspectives gathered through expert interviews. Ultimately, this article advances an agenda aimed at urging people to think about more hopeful futures for aging in cities, an issue of paramount significance in the post-socialist societies of the 21st century.","PeriodicalId":51735,"journal":{"name":"Urban Planning","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.8,"publicationDate":"2024-04-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140673827","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The urban residential pattern in China experienced two significant transitions during the second half of the 20th century. The first happened in the 1960s, based on the Soviet model, when a large-scale community model was built led by government enterprises and institutions under a planned economy; the second was in 1998 when the real estate market-led socialised community model emerged after the reform of commercial housing. The former is characterised by the integration of supervisory units, service units, and property owners: Residents enjoy the right to use the residences and supporting services provided by their affiliated institutions, while for the latter case, supervisory units, service units, and property owners are separate. New conflicts have been found in Danwei neighbourhoods with the housing commercialisation reform. This research focuses on the Third Dormitory of the Party Committee of Shandong Province as a case study to analyse the transformation of public space in the Danwei neighbourhood during the post-socialist era. Through archival research, interviews, and observation, this research has found that two forces that celebrate marketisation by the new residents and resist marketisation by the original residents coexist in the Third Dormitory. Unregulated spatial practices have resulted from the incomplete control of the owners of public space by the provincial government office. This research offers an example of public space transformations in Danwei neighbourhoods, which have undergone incomplete marketisation. The reflections on the Third Dormitory provide references for future neighbourhood management and policy-making.
{"title":"Transforming Public Spaces in Post-Socialist China’s Danwei Neighbourhoods: The Third Dormitory of the Party Committee of Shandong Province","authors":"Tao Shi, Fangjie Guo, Yali Zhang","doi":"10.17645/up.7632","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.17645/up.7632","url":null,"abstract":"The urban residential pattern in China experienced two significant transitions during the second half of the 20th century. The first happened in the 1960s, based on the Soviet model, when a large-scale community model was built led by government enterprises and institutions under a planned economy; the second was in 1998 when the real estate market-led socialised community model emerged after the reform of commercial housing. The former is characterised by the integration of supervisory units, service units, and property owners: Residents enjoy the right to use the residences and supporting services provided by their affiliated institutions, while for the latter case, supervisory units, service units, and property owners are separate. New conflicts have been found in Danwei neighbourhoods with the housing commercialisation reform. This research focuses on the Third Dormitory of the Party Committee of Shandong Province as a case study to analyse the transformation of public space in the Danwei neighbourhood during the post-socialist era. Through archival research, interviews, and observation, this research has found that two forces that celebrate marketisation by the new residents and resist marketisation by the original residents coexist in the Third Dormitory. Unregulated spatial practices have resulted from the incomplete control of the owners of public space by the provincial government office. This research offers an example of public space transformations in Danwei neighbourhoods, which have undergone incomplete marketisation. The reflections on the Third Dormitory provide references for future neighbourhood management and policy-making.","PeriodicalId":51735,"journal":{"name":"Urban Planning","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.8,"publicationDate":"2024-04-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140676725","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
In 1962, a short film by Shell-Mex and BP Limited (Companies of the Royal Dutch/Shell Group and the British Petroleum Group) was prepared for the 29th Annual Conference and Exhibition of the National Society of Clean Air in Britain to encourage British households to shift from coal domestic fires to smokeless heating appliances. One year earlier, in 1961, the most influential report on space standards in Britain was published, titled Homes for Today and Tomorrow (also known as the Parker Morris Report), which advocated for flexibility in the home through larger size homes and better heating. This article focuses on the report’s emphasis on better heating as one way to fulfil the concept of the “adaptable home,” and it introduces the discussions about heating standards during the report’s making, underlining the open domestic fire as an obsolete technology. These discussions, however, were entangled with socio-cultural endeavours and consumerist aspirations for modernisation, placing the removal of an otherwise pervasive domestic element within a broader net of forces, actors, and dilemmas involved in decision-making and planning. This article, composed as a historical acquisition, oscillates from the scale of the domestic fireplace to the housing scale, raising the issue of obsolescence in housing provision, which is still salient today.
{"title":"Heating Standards and Obsolescence in Post-War Britain’s Homes for Today and Tomorrow","authors":"Savia Palate","doi":"10.17645/up.7754","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.17645/up.7754","url":null,"abstract":"In 1962, a short film by Shell-Mex and BP Limited (Companies of the Royal Dutch/Shell Group and the British Petroleum Group) was prepared for the 29th Annual Conference and Exhibition of the National Society of Clean Air in Britain to encourage British households to shift from coal domestic fires to smokeless heating appliances. One year earlier, in 1961, the most influential report on space standards in Britain was published, titled Homes for Today and Tomorrow (also known as the Parker Morris Report), which advocated for flexibility in the home through larger size homes and better heating. This article focuses on the report’s emphasis on better heating as one way to fulfil the concept of the “adaptable home,” and it introduces the discussions about heating standards during the report’s making, underlining the open domestic fire as an obsolete technology. These discussions, however, were entangled with socio-cultural endeavours and consumerist aspirations for modernisation, placing the removal of an otherwise pervasive domestic element within a broader net of forces, actors, and dilemmas involved in decision-making and planning. This article, composed as a historical acquisition, oscillates from the scale of the domestic fireplace to the housing scale, raising the issue of obsolescence in housing provision, which is still salient today.","PeriodicalId":51735,"journal":{"name":"Urban Planning","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.8,"publicationDate":"2024-04-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140688933","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Today, whether condominiums or social housing, Parisian buildings are undergoing a series of renovation processes aimed at enhancing their construction quality. This renewal, however, impacts the social life of the buildings, which has consolidated over the years. As a socio-technical process, renovation transforms existing architectural forms based on current housing standards. However, while a building may be composed of materials and populations, it is also the result of history, from its construction to its daily maintenance or degradation. Interpreted as such, this article posits that people with no control over their living environments are more likely to suffer from health problems, due to a lack of knowledge about underlying causes or low health literacy regarding living spaces. Consequently, their inability to adapt raises the question: How does an individual’s ability to control their living space influence their health? As part of the SAPHIR program, this article explores this by seeking to understand residents’ abilities, actions, and feelings concerning the tension between individual satisfaction levels and their impact on physical and mental health. It does so through three case studies of buildings constructed prior to 1973, focusing on their design, morphology, location, legal status, norms, and population types. Conducting individual interviews and collective focus groups allowed us to highlight the links between these elements by creating inhabitant and building typologies from different historical periods and standards.
{"title":"Energy Renovation and Inhabitants’ Health Literacy: Three Housing Buildings in Paris","authors":"Yaneira Wilson, Y. Fijalkow","doi":"10.17645/up.7663","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.17645/up.7663","url":null,"abstract":"Today, whether condominiums or social housing, Parisian buildings are undergoing a series of renovation processes aimed at enhancing their construction quality. This renewal, however, impacts the social life of the buildings, which has consolidated over the years. As a socio-technical process, renovation transforms existing architectural forms based on current housing standards. However, while a building may be composed of materials and populations, it is also the result of history, from its construction to its daily maintenance or degradation. Interpreted as such, this article posits that people with no control over their living environments are more likely to suffer from health problems, due to a lack of knowledge about underlying causes or low health literacy regarding living spaces. Consequently, their inability to adapt raises the question: How does an individual’s ability to control their living space influence their health? As part of the SAPHIR program, this article explores this by seeking to understand residents’ abilities, actions, and feelings concerning the tension between individual satisfaction levels and their impact on physical and mental health. It does so through three case studies of buildings constructed prior to 1973, focusing on their design, morphology, location, legal status, norms, and population types. Conducting individual interviews and collective focus groups allowed us to highlight the links between these elements by creating inhabitant and building typologies from different historical periods and standards.","PeriodicalId":51735,"journal":{"name":"Urban Planning","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.8,"publicationDate":"2024-04-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140689706","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This article explores the intersecting processes of construction of the home, social, and individual identities through domestic practices inside French housing. It examines the design and occupation of French homes as crucial moments for the consolidation of subjectivities, beliefs, and ideologies manifested through daily actions that are influenced by normative cultural systems. In specific, it looks at codified domestic behaviours and their aesthetic dimension, focusing on how the French “art of living” has influenced taste, design, appropriation, and decoration of domestic interiors. Architectural treatises along with etiquette manuals are analysed as they both represent—through the written word and architectural drawings—cultural and gender stereotypes as well as societal norms and expectations that inform housing design and domestic practices. These documents directly assist in the cultural construction of the domestic space, uncovering mechanisms of reproduction and representation that inform the use and design of residential architecture. By focusing on women’s lived experiences, this research looks at the consolidation of feminine domestic cultures and how they fostered small-scale physical transformations of dwellings’ interiors through daily negotiations that define self-identity and interpersonal power relations. These dynamics are referred to as “cultural domesticity.” The latter frames this study along with feminist literature, situating women’s contribution to the aesthetic and spatial development of French apartments. What emerges from this study is that the French state historically exercised a regulatory power that impacted daily life and housing design.
{"title":"The Cultural Construction of the Domestic Space in France: Women’s Lived Experience and the Materialization of Customs","authors":"Francesca Romana Forlini","doi":"10.17645/up.7753","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.17645/up.7753","url":null,"abstract":"This article explores the intersecting processes of construction of the home, social, and individual identities through domestic practices inside French housing. It examines the design and occupation of French homes as crucial moments for the consolidation of subjectivities, beliefs, and ideologies manifested through daily actions that are influenced by normative cultural systems. In specific, it looks at codified domestic behaviours and their aesthetic dimension, focusing on how the French “art of living” has influenced taste, design, appropriation, and decoration of domestic interiors. Architectural treatises along with etiquette manuals are analysed as they both represent—through the written word and architectural drawings—cultural and gender stereotypes as well as societal norms and expectations that inform housing design and domestic practices. These documents directly assist in the cultural construction of the domestic space, uncovering mechanisms of reproduction and representation that inform the use and design of residential architecture. By focusing on women’s lived experiences, this research looks at the consolidation of feminine domestic cultures and how they fostered small-scale physical transformations of dwellings’ interiors through daily negotiations that define self-identity and interpersonal power relations. These dynamics are referred to as “cultural domesticity.” The latter frames this study along with feminist literature, situating women’s contribution to the aesthetic and spatial development of French apartments. What emerges from this study is that the French state historically exercised a regulatory power that impacted daily life and housing design.","PeriodicalId":51735,"journal":{"name":"Urban Planning","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.8,"publicationDate":"2024-04-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140702195","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Norms and handbooks have played a key role in the design of residential rooms in Sweden since the 1940s. Ever since, changes in housing policies have led to varying definitions and regulations of residential rooms, allowing their existence, defining their configuration, and framing their performance. And yet, none of these rooms has been built; they are prescribed room types that belong in the pages of handbooks that validate the framework in which housing design can operate. What are these prescribed room types? What do they look like? Who and what do they include? Have they changed over time? In response to these questions, this article follows the evolution of a set of residential room types in the design handbooks that have accompanied housing policy bills in Sweden from 1942 to 2023. These manuals are not the law itself but operate as an interface for professionals and designers by reflecting the practical consequences of the norm. Diagrams, dimensions, texts, and references to housing literature vary from handbook to handbook to define the specific traits of each type of room. By studying these traits in relation to key moments of Swedish housing politics, the article reveals the role that norms and standards have played in the establishment of the regulatory regime in which housing design in Sweden operates today.
{"title":"Handbook, Standard, Room: The Prescription of Residential Room Types in Sweden Between 1942 and 2023","authors":"Daniel Movilla Vega, Lluis Juan Liñán","doi":"10.17645/up.7846","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.17645/up.7846","url":null,"abstract":"Norms and handbooks have played a key role in the design of residential rooms in Sweden since the 1940s. Ever since, changes in housing policies have led to varying definitions and regulations of residential rooms, allowing their existence, defining their configuration, and framing their performance. And yet, none of these rooms has been built; they are prescribed room types that belong in the pages of handbooks that validate the framework in which housing design can operate. What are these prescribed room types? What do they look like? Who and what do they include? Have they changed over time? In response to these questions, this article follows the evolution of a set of residential room types in the design handbooks that have accompanied housing policy bills in Sweden from 1942 to 2023. These manuals are not the law itself but operate as an interface for professionals and designers by reflecting the practical consequences of the norm. Diagrams, dimensions, texts, and references to housing literature vary from handbook to handbook to define the specific traits of each type of room. By studying these traits in relation to key moments of Swedish housing politics, the article reveals the role that norms and standards have played in the establishment of the regulatory regime in which housing design in Sweden operates today.","PeriodicalId":51735,"journal":{"name":"Urban Planning","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.8,"publicationDate":"2024-04-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140716158","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The South African Reconstruction and Development Programme (RDP) was initiated to provide subsidised housing for low-income families. However, the programme faced challenges in establishing adequate technical guidelines and standards, resulting in subpar housing quality. This article discusses the multifaceted nature of subsidised housing design, emphasising the importance of incorporating technical housing standards as well as the spatial needs of residents based on their context (at both domestic and neighbourhood scales). The article focuses on the K206 housing RDP project in Alexandra, Johannesburg, as a case study that transitioned from generic technical standards to a resident-responsive design scheme that was inspired by the backyard room incremental expansions that were already prevalent in the Alexandra context. A critical review of South Africa’s RDP housing design technical standards and policy is explored. The article also examines the density standards and allowances for incremental expansions introduced by the K206 project, analysing data derived from fieldwork observations, interviews, and the spatial analysis of 26 dwelling units. The study’s findings underscore the significance of maintaining an equilibrium between technical standards and resident-responsive design decisions. The results demonstrate that tailoring the RDP housing design solutions to unique contextual needs can significantly elevate the quality of life of residents concerning income generation and flexibility for incremental expansion. However, this balance is delicate and disparities between the RDP technical standards and user-initiated development over time also have the potential to ultimately impair residents’ living spaces.
{"title":"Compact Housing for Incremental Growth: The K206 RDP Project in Alexandra, Johannesburg","authors":"Afua Wilcox, Nelson Mota, M. Haffner, M. Elsinga","doi":"10.17645/up.7736","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.17645/up.7736","url":null,"abstract":"The South African Reconstruction and Development Programme (RDP) was initiated to provide subsidised housing for low-income families. However, the programme faced challenges in establishing adequate technical guidelines and standards, resulting in subpar housing quality. This article discusses the multifaceted nature of subsidised housing design, emphasising the importance of incorporating technical housing standards as well as the spatial needs of residents based on their context (at both domestic and neighbourhood scales). The article focuses on the K206 housing RDP project in Alexandra, Johannesburg, as a case study that transitioned from generic technical standards to a resident-responsive design scheme that was inspired by the backyard room incremental expansions that were already prevalent in the Alexandra context. A critical review of South Africa’s RDP housing design technical standards and policy is explored. The article also examines the density standards and allowances for incremental expansions introduced by the K206 project, analysing data derived from fieldwork observations, interviews, and the spatial analysis of 26 dwelling units. The study’s findings underscore the significance of maintaining an equilibrium between technical standards and resident-responsive design decisions. The results demonstrate that tailoring the RDP housing design solutions to unique contextual needs can significantly elevate the quality of life of residents concerning income generation and flexibility for incremental expansion. However, this balance is delicate and disparities between the RDP technical standards and user-initiated development over time also have the potential to ultimately impair residents’ living spaces.","PeriodicalId":51735,"journal":{"name":"Urban Planning","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.8,"publicationDate":"2024-04-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140745573","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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