Affordable Living (JOVIS Publishers)

ContentS

IMPRINT © 2014 by jovis Verlag GmbH Texts by kind permission of the authors.

Pictures by kind permission of the photographers / holders of the image rights.

All rights reserved.

Cover illustration: Klaus Dömer Editors and Authors: Klaus Dömer, Hans Drexler, Joachim Schultz-Granberg Translation: Alison Kirkland Copy-editing: Mara Taylor Design and setting: Klaus Dömer, Stephanie Monteiro Kisslinger Printing and binding: Graspo CZ, a. s., Zlín Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data are available on the Internet at http://dnb.d-nb.de jovis Verlag GmbH Kurfürstenstraße 15/16 10785 Berlin www.jovis.de jovis books are available worldwide in selected bookstores. Please contact your nearest bookseller or visit www.jovis.de for information concerning your local distribution.

ISBN 978-3-86859-324-2

This publication has been made possible with the kind support of the University of Applied Science Münster, the Robert Bosch Stiftung, and the Wüstenrot Stiftung.

About this Book Dieter Hassenpflug / Preface

8 10

Affordable Living: A Definition

12

Essays Ralf Pasel / We need Visions!

Liu Kun, Li Yong-bo / Top-down Planning and Bottom-up Housing Initiatives Ma Hang, Wang Yaowu, Dai Donghui / Urban Villages Anne-Katrin Fenk / (Not) Affordable Housing Maren Harnack / Big is Beautiful Angelika Drescher, Christian Schöningh / Cooperative Models

32 38 44 50

Methodology

60

Projects 1 Standards / Participation BeL Associates / Grundbau und Siedler Gaupenraub +/- Architects / VinziRast – Mittendrin Pasel.Künzel Architects / Waterstad Klaus Dömer / Interactive Housing Impressions (Overview on p. 113)

64 66 72 78 84 90 97

18 20 26

2 Mass Housing Druot, Lacaton & Vassal Architects / Tour Bois Le Prêtre Dietmar Feichtinger Architekten / Eurogate Capol / Longhua Affordable Building Anna Nikodem / Vertical Village Impressions (Overview on p. 161)

114 120 126 132 138 145

3 Minimizing / Externalization Urbanus / Urban Tulou Ryue Nishizawa / Moriyama House Tanglang Urban Village Splitterwerk / Schwarzer Laubfrosch Impressions (Overview on p. 209)

162 168 174 180 186 193

4 Prefabrication nArchitects / My Micro NYC Tegnestuen Vandkunsten / Kvistgård Lacaton & Vassal Architects / Mulhouse Haerle Hubacher Architekten / Balance Uster Impressions (Overview on p. 257)

210 216 222 228 234 241

Affordability Patterns

258

Image Credits

270

About this book

8

This book is the product of an initiative that began in 2011 at the Münster School of Architecture (MSA). Through this initiative we worked with students and Edward Tse Hei Liu—who then occupied a post as guest lecturer at the MSA—to address the issue of affordable housing for the first time. Above all, we studied the inherent potential of modern production methods for achieving the sustainable development of affordable housing for the world’s growing population. We wish to express our gratitude for this collaboration and the many valuable ideas that grew out of it.

The Robert Bosch Stiftung was the most significant provider of support for the project, providing sponsorship as part of the “Sustainable Partners” program. This made it possible for us to make two visits to Shenzhen together with a group of students, to embark on a collaboration with the Harbin Institute of Technology, and to welcome a delegation of university professors and students from China to Münster. That phase of the project concluded with an international conference in August 2013, which was also sponsored by the Robert Bosch Stiftung. For all of this, we wish to express our heartfelt gratitude.

An international collaboration requires a great deal of commitment, patience, and enthusiasm. It was our Chinese partners who truly gave us insight into the Chinese situation and Chinese planning methods. For the friendly and vibrant collaboration on content that went into the Chinese-European academic discourse that is at the heart of this project and this book, we are indebted to all supporters from our Chinese partner university, the Harbin Institute of Technology, and the Shenzhen Graduate School, and especially to Prof. Wang Yaowu, PhD; Prof. Dai Donghui, PhD; Prof. Ma Hang, PhD; Prof. Guo Xiangmin, PhD; Prof. Xie Yu, PhD; Prof. Liu Kun, PhD; Prof. Yu Lei, PhD; and Prof. Zhao Hongyu, PhD. The scope of this academic exchange was not confined to China; our workshops in Münster and Shenzhen and the international student competition were enriched by the invaluable contributions of the students and professors of the Venice University of Architecture (IUAV). In particular, our thanks go to Prof.

Armando Dal Fabbro, Prof. Maria Chiara Tosi, and Prof. Margherita Turvani.

Many people have assisted us in our travels in China and have also been instrumental for interesting discussions—especially Anna

Laura Govoni of Urbanus Research and Federico Curiél, Creative of DGJ Architects and Landscapes Ltd HK, but also Xiaodu Liu, Yan Meng, Tat Lam, Camilla Costa, Travis Bunt, and Tzu Hua Wu of Urbanus Shenzhen and Hong Kong.

The Deutsche Akademische Auslandsdienst DAAD also supported this international project in two respects: it sponsored Edward Liu’s residency at the MSA in 2011/2012 and also the residency of the Chinese students and professors in Münster in 2013. For both of these forms of assistance, we are very grateful.

Our thanks also go to everyone who took part in the 2013 International Conference on Affordable & Sustainable Housing at the MSA. Arno Brandlhuber, Jörg Leeser, Anne-Katrin Fenk, Prof. Liu Kun, PhD, and Ralf Pasel enriched the conference by contributing the invaluable project examples from all over the world that are presented in the essays contained in the first part of this book. We also wish to acknowledge the contribution of Dr. Dieter Hassenpflug, Dr. Maren Harnack, Christian Schöningh, Angelika Drescher, and Laura Memmel, who provided additional pieces for this book.

We are also grateful to those who made our project possible through their organizational and administrative work. First, Jutta Uthmann—without whose tireless dedication, progress at the MSA would have instantly ground to a halt. We also wish to acknowledge the exceptional commitment of the tutors who organized trips and events: especially Tim Christossek, Britta Dierking, and Tanja Koch.

Our students at the Harbin Institute of Technology (HIT), the Venice University of Architecture (IUAV), and the MSA provided the true foundation for the international collaboration through their tireless work, their ideas and visions, their enthusiasm, their curiosity, their understanding of the subject, their highly competent study work, and their contribution to the discussions.

Last but not least, we would like to acknowledge all of those who worked directly on the book. Firstly, there is the Wüstenrot Stiftung, which made the publication of this book possible by supporting its printing. Equally, our thanks go to all the firms who made images, graphics, and other information relating to their projects available to us, especially BeL Associates, Frédéric Druot, Dietmar Feichtinger Architekten, Gaupenraub+/-, Haerle Hubacher Architekten, nARCHITECTS, Anna Nikodem, Ryue Nishizawa, Lacaton & Vassal Architects, Pasel.Künzel Architects, Tegnestuen Vandkunsten, and Urbanus.

Our special thanks go to Stephanie Monteiro Kisslinger, who created the book’s layout, and to jovis Publishers, Berlin for their very helpful cooperation and tireless dedication, and especially to Philipp Sperrle, Anja Bippus, Alison Kirkland, and Mara Taylor.

9

Preface

Prof. Dr. Dieter Hassenpflug

10

There are few social issues that occupy as comparably central a position in the ideology of Germany’s first “socially democratic” modernists as the issue of affordable housing for low-income population groups, especially for industrial workers. Without this area of concern, the Bauhaus ideological canon—which reflected the increasingly powerful communal demand for social justice and participation both in aesthetic and in constructive terms—would have remained inadequate and incomplete. The first large-scale housing developments were created during the Weimar Republic as a continuation of a tradition of philanthropic housebuilding.

Functionally, constructively, and in terms of form, this development connected to the production processes of advanced, Fordist industry: serial production, piecework, and efficiency. Subsidized housing construction ultimately developed into a powerful instrument for the provision of state services. During the post-war years, the idea of subsidized housing construction was made to serve the reconstruction effort. In West Germany, it was also extended to the rapidly emerging middle class through the addition of instruments for promoting home ownership. The German welfare state was now spatialized in the form of peripheral large-scale housing developments and a dispersed patchwork of private homes. At the close of the millennium, both lines in the promotion of affordable housing came increasingly under pressure, owing to the increased influence of processes induced by the market economy—with housing availability regulated by the mechanism of supply and demand.

Subsidized housing construction dependent on state benefits was an international phenomenon in the Western world from the very beginning. One can see this, for instance, in the postulates of the Athens Charter, in the United Kingdom’s “new town” movement,

and in the United States Housing Act. The discourse on affordable housing is currently being conducted with an eye to those regions and nations where mass poverty is forcing people to live in conditions that are unsanitary and unfit for human habitation. Now, it is a fact that one cannot simply transfer this view of things—a view that primarily focuses on the southern hemisphere—to China. However, this huge country increasingly sees itself confronted with the socially polarizing effects of its current growth model. In its growing intensity, this situation demands solutions for the hordes of migrant and itinerant workers on a scale such as the world has never seen before.

This volume, which is based upon a project by Masters’ students at the Münster School of Architecture (msa), has done us all a service by shifting the architectonic and urban planning focus towards China, thus expanding the international and, in particular, the intercultural horizons of students. The choosing of the new southern Chinese city of Shenzhen—which, in its explosive growth, reflects the country’s hyper-urbanization as scarcely any other Chinese city does—as the reference point for the draft plan serves to highlight specifically local responses to the challenges of affordable housing: the so-called villages, which, with their affordable rent, create an informal bridge between the rural, agrarian existence and the urban, hukou city life. However, what these villages also show us is that even if urban China is on the same level as other developed states in many respects—in terms of science, technology, culture, the digital age, et cetera—it is also, to a great extent, still undergoing a kind of Chinese Gründerzeit or Industrial Revolution: the phase undergone by Europe at the end of the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth century. However, urban development in China is gradually gaining ground, in terms of quality, as well as quantity. For some time, China has been seeking a path to a harmonious society—both in theory and practice. This includes the prospect of making affordable housing available to the majority of the population, to the people who, for one reason or another, are not doing as well as the new middle and upper classes. It was this area—the problem of housing for the less privileged—that students were required by the msa to address in their competition entries relating to Shenzhen.

The editors and authors of this book are to be thanked for their initiative in bringing together up-to-date ideas suitable for the age of globalization that are concerned with the as-yet-unmet civilized requirement of providing affordable housing for everyone—a requirement that will probably never be entirely fulfilled.

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14

Working time required to buy one iPhone 4 S 16 GB in hours

10.0 26.3 28.2 29.1 30.0 32.0 32.4 45.5 46.3 49.8 51.7 52.7 53.1 54.1 63.3 65.0 67.2 68.3

Working time required to buy 1 kg of rice in min.

720 642 688 3,350 1,855 2,174 1,856 1,632 4,057 2,192 1,974 2,950 1,724 577 2,053 2,165 2,538 1,974

Working time required to buy 1 kg of bread in min.

21.60 7.33 7.33 34.53 18.53 20.40 17.20 10.80 26.27 13.20 11.47 16.80 9.73 3.20 9.73 10.00 11.33 8.67

Net annual wage for the purchase of a 75-m² private home

1,620 550 550 2,590 1,390 1,530 1,290 810 1,970 990 860 1,260 730 240 730 750 850 650

Standard local purchasing prices per m² medium EUR

Living space for 30% of average net income (m²)

City Caracas Warsaw Shanghai New York Hong Kong London Paris Madrid Zurich Frankfurt Amsterdam Tokyo Leon Beijing Vienna Munich Copenhagen Berlin

Average net monthly income (Euro)

fig 03 Prices and wages: A global comparison of buying power

The Role of Architecture The affordable housing issue is seen as an economic and as a political problem, leading to widespread discussion of economic policy measures to relieve it, such as funding for social housing, fixed rents, and financing and amortization models. This book, however, is concerned with discovering the solutions offered by architects and urban planners. It investigates not only buildings and their construction but also urban planning factors such as density, land use, and infrastructure.

Cost per month of 1 m² of low-cost living space, low-cost price level EUR

03 Office of The Registrar General and Census Commissioner, India (2011): 2011 Census Data. Retrieved from http://www.censusindia.gov. in/2011Common/Latest_Releases. html, 05.2014; and Ibid (2011): Primary Census Abstract for Total Population and Houseless Population. Retrieved from http:// www.censusindia.gov.in/2011Documents/Houseless%20 PPT%2005-12-2013.pdf, 05.2014

Standard local rent for three room apartment medium EUR

02 Slumbevölkerung in absoluten Zahlen (2002). [Graph illustration of percentage of population living in slums]. UN: World Urbanization Prospects: The 2001 Revision; UNHabitat, Global Urban Observatory, 2005 / Slums. Retrieved from http://www.bpb.de/gesellschaft/ staedte/megastaedte/64768/ slums, 03.2014

exodus from rural areas. Worldwide, the lack of affordable living space is creating unofficial settlements and slums. The percentage of city-dwellers living in slums has increased from its 2001 level of 31.6 percent, and is projected to hit 33.2 percent in 2015.02 Slums are affected by a wide range of well-known problems: poor infrastructure (water supply, sanitation, electricity), a very low standard of living, lack of a safe environment (in terms of crime and in terms of fire safety), and limited access to education, medical, and social provision. In other instances, poverty and the lack of available housing lead to homelessness. For instance, in 2011, 5.41 percent (65,494,604) of India’s 1.2 billion people was living in slums. A further 0.15 percent (1,772,889) of the population was recorded as houseless.03

2,520 2,230 2,930 8,540 6,430 6,230 8,340 2,390 9,050 2,890 3,010 7,330 3,550 2,510 2,670 4,030 3,230 2,250

21.87 21.69 26.60 16.93 21.65 17.91 28.11 9.15 13.94 8.24 9.53 15.52 13.10 27.18 8.12 11.63 7.95 7.12

59 13 43 13 24 7 15 10 6 9 7 15 10 28 9 11 9 11

13 24 9 6 10 13 13 6 6 11 9 15 13 16 9 11 6 9

271.5 141.0 142.0 27.5 53.0 42.5 43.5 53.0 22.0 41.5 44.5 35 52.5 184 45.5 42.5 36.5 55.5

City Hamburg Berlin Munich Frankfurt am Main Stuttgart Retail Prices Germany

Annual changes in rent levels + 2.3 % + 3.7 % +3.7 % +3.2 % + 3.4 % annual rate of inflation average of 1.7 %

Change in rent levels over 5 years + 21.1 % + 19.6 % +14.7 % + 13.5 % + 10.7 % over 5 years culminating at 8.3 %

Some of the urban planning strategy options are discussed in the chapter on “Mass Housing.” These strategies are designed to respond to the fact that, in conurbations, land costs and infrastructure costs constitute the majority of overall costs, and that these costs can be reduced for each individual housing unit by means of a high-density construction strategy. High development density can also reduce energy consumption and tailgating traffic. At the same time, the challenge is to build in such a way that healthy living conditions are ensured in spite of the high development density. The anonymity and social segregation that became established in the large-scale housing estates of the post-war modernist age should be avoided. The qualities particular to the urban locations require a balanced concentration of culture, work, and housing. The chapter on “Prefabrication” introduces economical construction techniques, with an investigation into their potential to provide high-quality living space at low prices. “Prefabrication” and “increased density” are measures that can be described as efficiency-based strategies: they achieve a higher living space output for the same investment of materials, building land, and energy. A different approach is presented in the chapters on “Minimizing” and “Standards / Participation,” which will discuss the most sensible and appropriate levels and quality of living space, resources, and energy. The functionality and satisfaction offered by a home is based on more than just its size. A small home with well-tailored and well-lit rooms and with a high standard of comfort may offer a better quality of living than a larger home that has been unfavorably planned.

It will become apparent that the strategies presented in this book are potentially mutually contradictory: on the one hand, individual and small-scale solutions are presented as advantageous, and, on the other hand, there are also advantages associated with massproduction and reproduction. One should decide based on the given context and the individual construction assignments which of the strategies presented here are suitable for producing optimal results (or, indeed, which individual aspects of the approaches presented are suitable), and which, consequently, can contribute to the further development of prefabrication strategies.

fig 04 Annual changes of rent levels in German cities

15

We need visions!

On Experiments, Subsistence Minimum, Flexibility in the Construction of Housing, and Adaptive Architectural Strategies

Prof. Ralf Pasel Pasel.Künzel Architects Rotterdam / Netherlands, Berlin / Germany It is a well-enough known fact that, in the year 2008, a threshold was crossed: our planet transitioned from predominantly rural to predominantly urban. Since then, for the first time in history, more people are living in urban agglomerations than in rural communities, and it is estimated that by the year 2050 the number of city dwellers will have experienced a significant further increase. It is anticipated that, in thirty-five-years time, seven out of ten people will be living in cities, most of them in the so-called mega-cities of Asia, Africa, and Latin America, with all the impact and consequences such a transformation implies.

While the majority of European cities today are faced with future shrinkage, the southern hemisphere in particular is seeing an explosive growth in its urban centers. In addition to the far-reaching fig 05 A slum in Cape Coast, Ghana

20

consequences for social and economic structures in the rural context, this change is particularly significant with regard to its direct impact on individuals’ housing situations.

In view of this rapid structural change, it is hardly surprising that around a sixth of the world’s population today is living in precarious circumstances, usually on the peripheries of cities or in the gray areas of the city, in the gaps in the city’s fabric that have been adopted by their residents or have been “made available”. Such places are associated with a permanent risk of being evicted. They generally lack infrastructure such as a drinking water supply, sewage systems, and electricity, and they usually offer inadequate access to education, culture, and other social networks—not to mention the kind of political support necessary to begin to bring about a positive change in the status quo.

To create for oneself a future that offers real prospects under these conditions means far more than simply making a large investment and requires enormous personal endeavor. In spite of—or, presumably, because of—the insecure existence of their inhabitants, these new and generally informal urban localities offer astonishing examples of efficiency and seemingly unlimited creativity. Because a lack of financial means compels their inhabitants to operate economically and sustainably, they harbor enormous potential in terms of intelligent urbanism—a quality that could be employed very profitably in the European context.

In the so-called shadow cities, accommodation is produced using the minimum of materials. Local building materials that are easily manufactured and readily worked are used; these are often composed of recycled waste products from local industries. The materials available on-site decisively influence architectural configurations and the various types of structures that are erected, because these determine the construction options. Conservation of resources, optimization of space needs, and multiple occupancy and functions are the order of the day, supported by a general principle of deep understanding of economic and social sustainability. It is particularly interesting to consider the question of the applicability or transferability of strategies and planning tools from unofficial development models to the creation of living space in European cities, because of the typological adaptability and flexibility that they offer.

It is interesting that these rapid urbanization processes are frequently ignored by planning authorities, housing cooperatives, private investors, and university institutions, which largely leads to the neglect of the potential inherent in their development. Therefore, it is all the more vital that architectonic strategies be developed to bridge the gap between the actual needs of the “new” city inhabit-

fig 06 Participation for the informal housing in Temuco, Chile

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Top-down Planning and Bottom-up Housing Initiatives Urban Development in Shenzhen

fig 12 Global GDP growth map (2009–2013), Shenzehn, one of the biggest cities in China, was once a small county before 1979.

10,000,000

8,000,000

6,000,000

Residential Population

4,000,000

2,000,000

2010

2005

2000

1995

1990

1985

26

1979

Permanent Population

GDP 10,000

5,000

2009

fig 11 Shenzhen population growth (1979–2010)

08 Wang, Fuhai (2000): “From the Planning Hierarchy to the Planning System: Shenzhen Urban Planning Course Analysis.” In: Urban Planning 24 (1), pp. 28–33

2000

With a 10 percent annual GDP growth, China has become the second largest economy. Like in other developing cities with booming economies, urban planners must consider how to counter urban sprawl, support the economy’s quick growth, meet its growing population’s demands, and make full use of its land.

The “planned city”08 Shenzhen exemplifies some of the most successful urban planning in China. Until 1979, Shenzhen was just a small town of 30,000, yet by 2010, it had a population of 10.36 million. Benefiting from China’s opening policy and rising market economy, the city has been growing quickly and has become one of China’s largest, richest cities. Shenzhen has grown according to a market economy, which made it a particular challenge for urban planners in China because traditional Soviet urban planning methods deal with planned economies.

In the nineteen-seventies, the nearby city of Hong Kong became an important economic center in Asia, but it suffered from a land shortage that necessitated relocating much of its manufacturing. After China’s economic opening policy in 1979, the Shenzhen Special Economic Zone (SEZ) became the first and nearest choice for expanding Hong Kong’s export-oriented industry. In contrast to other Chinese cities and because Shenzhen relies economically on Hong Kong, the biggest Asian free-trade port, its economy is tied to the highly uncertain global market. The industries that moved into Shenzhen are light manufacturing, building, and associated secondary industries.

Like most cities whose manufacturing economy booms, Shenzhen witnessed an influx of laborers, leading to a population surge. From 1985 to 1990, the average annual GDP growth rate reached 20%, and an easing of the national employment system also contributed to Shenzhen’s reputation as a “gold-rush town”. Obviously, the existing infrastructure and social services could not support this boom. Thus, the two core urban planning goals became to guide development by allocating spatial resources fairly and to provide effective social services for the many low-earning immigrant laborers.

1991

Currently in China, fast economic and population growth presents an urban planning challenge. Shenzhen, a thirty-year-old city, is China’s fastest growing city and one of its biggest. It represents an urban planning success in how urban sprawl has been prevented and how millions of new laborers have been accommodated. This essay examines this success story, in particular the interplay of top-down and bottom-up urban planning methods.

1979

Prof. Liu Kun / Li Yong-bo Harbin Institute of Technology, Shenzhen Graduate School Shenzhen / China

fig 13 Annual GDP of Shenzhen

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(Not) Affordable Housing

fig 20 Austin Town, informal urban development in Bangalore

Anne-Katrin Fenk MOD Institute Bangalore / India 09 This provided the impetus for a large number of large-scale real estate developers to develop dedicated low-cost programs, with the aim of conquering a profitable market. This controlled construction boom is also a state strategy calculated to stimulate the market through the anticipated demand for building materials.

10 Government of India’s Ministry of Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation (2011): Rajiv Awas Yojana – Guidelines for Slum-Free City Planning. Retrieved from http://www.citiesalliance.org/ node/2099, 09.2014 11 National Portal of India (2011): Bharat Nirman. Retrieved from www.archive.india.gov.in/sectors/ rural/index.php?id=7, 09.2014 12 http://mhupa.gov.in/ray/ Ray_index.htm, 09.2014 13 Affordability is currently defined relative to an estimated disposable household income that lies below India’s average household income. In this system, a distinction is made between two groups: Economic Weaker Section (EWS) households have a monthly income of 0–3,300 INR, whereas Low-Income Group (LIG) households have a monthly household income of 3,301–7,300 INR. See, for example: Ministry of Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation (2007): Report of 11th FYP Working Group on Urban Housing with Focus on Slums. New Delhi 38

The story of affordable housing/low-cost housing in India is no success story. Even though the country has a housing shortfall of 24 million housing units, the affordable housing being made available to low-income groups is still insufficient. The current rapid pace of urbanization has significantly exacerbated this problem. Thanks to the slowdown in economic growth (2011/2012), the topic of affordable housing has now gained currency again, both in the government and on the economic level.09 This has led to the creation of a number of state-run initiatives whose declared aim is to produce a “Slum Free India.”10 Over the coming years, programs such as “Bharat Nirma”11 and “Rajiv Awas Yojna”12 are supposed to provide more than 15 million housing units for approximately 60,000,000 people in rural and in urban areas.

Looking at the issue from the economic perspective, it has been asserted that affordable housing/low-cost housing will be one of India’s fastest-growing markets over the coming years.

Contradicting Figures According to the 2011 census, India’s housing stock is roughly equal in size to the number of urban households. It may appear that the gap between the number of households and their housing stock is getting smaller; in reality, however, the scarcity of housing—and, in particular, the scarcity of affordable housing—has created a precarious situation in India’s densely populated urban areas. One cause of this is that figures have not been adjusted to reflect the number of dilapidated houses nor the number of people belonging to a household. The clash between the official figures and the complex urban reality sets in as soon as one asks how to define the term affordability.13 A number of highly complex economic, social, and

psychological factors contribute to this problem, as well. An additional challenge is posed by the widely varying social circumstances of the recipient group. People who fall into the categories homeless, Economic Weaker Section (EWS), and Low-Income Group (LIG), along with those who belong to the informal sector, are often denied access to lower-cost housing. These groups are increasingly forced to move to the peripheries of the cities, even though many have their own capital at their disposal (albeit on a first-generation basis).

Low-Cost Housing As a result of the new, liberalized market,14 the cities of India are currently undergoing a transformation. As a result, planning initiatives are increasingly tailored to suit the dynamics of the market. This has also had a bearing on the most significant affordable housing operators: private developers, “new coalitions” of industrial partners and NGOs using a PPP model, financial/credit institutions, and “slumlords.” The biggest barrier to affordable housing and low-cost housing in India today, however, is still the issue of land access. A large and increasing number of projects that are announced under the guise of affordability are located on the peripheries of cities. These sites may be affordable, but they are poorly served by public transportation and by services such as schools and hospitals. In addition, the edges of the city are expanding outward exponentially, while, at the same time, the inner-city centers are experiencing gentrification.15 Regardless of this, the redevelopment program announced at the governmental level—first and foremost the JNNURM (Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission) initiative16—will release significant amounts of land for development of this type over the coming years.

fig 21 Murty Town, Bangalore

14 This opening-up process (economic liberalization in India) began with the introduction of far-reaching economic reforms in 1991. See, for example: Sharma, Chanchal Kumar (2011): “A Discursive Dominance Theory of Economic Reforms Sustainability.”

In: India Review, 2 (10), pp. 126–184

15 Although this state of affairs has been widely criticized, most of the affordable housing projects taking place in India’s seven megacities are still sited in areas a long way from the city center, which do not possess the appropriate level of social infrastructure.

16 See: Slum Rehabilitation Authority (2014). Slum Rehabilitation Authority. Retrieved from http://www.sra.gov.in, 09.2014 39

big is beautiful The Renaissance of the “Wohnmaschine”

Dr. Maren Harnack University of Applied Science Frankfurt / Germany 22 The German Großwohnsiedlung and the British large-scale housing estate are similar in the sense that they both were built to cater for large parts of the population, including the middle classes such as skilled workers and young academics. The increasing concentration of multiply disadvantaged households in Großwohnsiedlungen, as well as in large-scale housing estates, is the result of the ongoing cuts in the social housing sector, which leave many who previously would have relied on this segment of the housing market to struggle with market-rate housing.

23 Dieter Hoffmann-Axthelm, for instance, says that Germany’s prevailing social model during this era was that of a “stateorganized mass society”: “it was believed to be the obligation of the state to undertake the socialization of all areas of life that had previously been the responsibility of the individual.”

From (2009): “Die Katastrophale Utopie – Planungswirtschaft und Sozialdogmatismus. Im Gespräch mit Dieter Hoffmann-Axthelm.”

In: Braum, Michael/ Welzbacher, Christian (eds.): Nachkriegsmoderne in Deutschland. Eine Epoche weiterdenken (pp. 36–51). Basel

44

Large-scale housing estates22 are among the least popular specimens of European post-war modernist architecture. Even today, they are still considered the embodiment of a political approach that failed comprehensively and that supposedly patronized its citizens23 and was unsustainable both in social and in architectural terms. This interpretation of the situation overlooks the fact that large-scale housing estates continue to play an important role today, particularly in urban areas with a high population density. They provide generally inexpensive homes and are also at least tolerably centrally located. Against a background of the increasing gentrification of the older, inner-city residential areas, this section of the housing stock is of vital importance to many less well-off urban-dwellers.

Anyone who does a more intensive study of large-scale housing estates, their inhabitants, and their negative image quickly realizes that there is an astonishing degree of difference between the insider view and the outsider view with regard to this construction type.

While most residents are satisfied with their place of residence, large-scale housing estates are often seen as inadequate by outsiders, who deploy two mutually reinforcing lines of criticism.

On the one hand, large-scale housing estates today are frequently seen as the antithesis of the so-called European city and are measured by that yardstick. This inevitably leads to this form of development being perceived as inadequate. In these large-scale housing estates, one sees barely any traces of what we generally view as “urbanity,” which includes an intensive use mix, clearly demarcated and defined public spaces, the strict separation of private and public spheres, and homes within a stone’s throw of everyday necessities.

On the other hand, large-scale housing estates often appear rundown, and this influences how their residents are perceived. The reason for this perception lies with the many communal areas, the upkeep and maintenance of which owners often neglect. Residents generally have no remedy for this, although community projects to improve the environs may certainly influence the situation for the better.

Claims and Reality To begin with, it must be accepted that large-scale housing estates were originally conceived as an alternative to the private residential districts of single family homes that were rapidly spreading out into the surrounding countryside during the nineteen-sixties and the nineteen-seventies—and not for high-density inner-city housing.

City housing developments required less space, while their fairly high density promised minimized infrastructural needs. In addition, a new home in a city housing development represented, for many of its first residents, a hitherto unfamiliar degree of luxury.

Furthermore, emancipation from exploitative private landlords and insecure rental contracts represented not insignificant benefits for residents.

At the time, the old apartment buildings that are so popular today had not yet been renovated; it was modern mass housing construction that created the conditions for the preservation of these buildings—with the aid of millions in public money.

Given the need that existed to justify this shift in housing policy, large-scale housing estates provided a welcome negative image or hate figure; they were discredited as soulless tenements that had graciously been made available to anyone who could not afford anything better. In comparison to this negative outsider image, most inhabitants still live quite happily in their housing developments.

Any criticism on their part is directed not so much towards the construction form or development form as against the widespread stigma and the insufficient maintenance carried out by owners.

The Space in between What sets large-scale housing estates apart from both private residential districts and inner-city residential quarters is their high proportion of communally used areas. These, as well as the individual homes themselves, are significantly responsible for the qualities of housing estates. At the same time, however, they require a high level of care and maintenance, most of which cannot be performed by the tenants. The situation is different from that of a private home with a garden: the state of the communal areas is of concern

45

31 See “Minimizing / Externalization,” pp. 162–209, in this book

54

launderette) and the roof terraces. Here the key to affordable housing is the externalizing of functions.31 Even the more skeptical residents, who were not originally convinced of the merits of the cooperative model, experienced a change in perspective through their participation in the shared process, embracing the collective’s fusion of the roles of living space provider and living space user. With the growth of the cooperative spirit, it became possible to see the cooperative model as an educational institution, also; through the monthly meetings and the high degree of co-determination, an architecture and urban planning–oriented learning process was initiated.

In a cooperative, one speaks of users rather than lessors and lessees.

“Users” describes those members of the cooperative who have been accorded right of residence for a certain area. A corresponding number of shares were acquired in the cooperative (the equity capital of the cooperative); these constitute about 50 percent of the housing costs. The remaining 50 percent (outside-financed construction costs) were paid through monthly use fees.

A cooperative has many advantages over a conventional building association of the Wohnungseigentümergemeinschaft (WEG) or homeowners’ association type. Communal apartments and “option spaces,” for instance, are difficult to implement in a WEG because the legal division into communal property and the special property of individuals leads to individual property taking the foreground, with the communal areas and institutions being portrayed as a sort of ballast. The cooperative allowed people to join up in spite of limited financial means: 30 percent of the Spreefeld users would not have been able to raise the equity capital for the freehold on a home, or a “WEG-Baugruppe”-type building association. In the case of the Spreefeld collective, private financing could be guaranteed for the bank by means of a communal mortgage registration. The cooperative is jointly liable for all members; this significantly reduces the risks incurred by the bank’s financing of the project. The payment of a high percentage—50 percent—was required, but this was successfully raised by means of a KfW loan, with the plot as security. The liability of individual members is restricted to their own shares. Additionally, a KfW program for energy-saving construction provided an ideal source of finance for the cooperative’s overall construction loan. The maximum loan amount is derived from the number of living units. One advantage was that the loan amount could be increased through small units, owing to the cluster apartments.

A sample calculation for a passive building helps to make things clear: for a 50-square-meter unit, the construction costs are 2000 Euro per square meter, and a share of 100,000 is achieved for the co-

operative. This means that the cooperative receives a KfW efficiency loan of more than 50,000 Euro. With 10,000 Euro of equity capital, one can take out a loan for acquiring cooperative shares of up to 50,000 Euro. Out of the entire stake, 90 percent is financed with an average interest rate of 2.3 percent for Spreefeld. The overall burden results from repayments and interest payments, dependent on the financing period.

The advantage of a cooperative is seen in the elimination of profit: it is not the aim of a cooperative to make a profit, and profit-making is prohibited by the articles. The debts associated with the buildings are repaid through the monthly use fees. Once the debts have been paid off, the members of the cooperative can choose whether to continue paying use fees in order to support future projects or to occupy their homes free of charge.

The Tempelhofer Feld Development Cooperative32 In a referendum on May 25, 2014, the plans presented by the senate for a peripheral development and a fundamental development of Tempelhofer Feld were rejected. It marked an embarrassing and disastrous ending to a story of lack of leadership and deficient citizen participation stretching back through several years. An alternative to the failed initiative was devised in the form of the development cooperative (ETF)—which, however, also lost ground owing to the result of the referendum, at least in its manifestation as an openoutcome community development with construction very much in view. Transferred to different situations, the know-how behind this idea has the potential to provide a model for innovative urban planning.

This development cooperative is a cooperative with ideals, which is to say that it is primarily concerned with developing goals and helpful models for the locality. This led it to adopt the role of a “roof cooperative”—to act, not as the principal, but as an agency for the overall mediation of a process of urban development. The goal of the development cooperative was to guarantee sustainable and affordable development, including possible development of the former airport’s periphery. This represented a fresh contribution to the ongoing debate in Berlin.

The heritable building right provided a central pillar and a political resource for the facilitation of long-term affordable housing. At the outset, money could have been saved on the costs of acquiring plots. In addition, the land would remain permanently in the possession of the city. Once the term for the heritable building rights had expired, decisions could have been made about how to proceed from that point. Public interests would be preserved. In terms of the

32 Original term in German: Entwicklungsgenossenschaft Tempelhofer Feld (ETF)

55

1 Affordability

4 Quality-related Criteria

1 - Affordability

4 - Quality-related Criteria

Rental expenditure for the typical home, converted into hours worked based on the regional pay level; in the case of owner-occupied homes, months’ pay required for full purchase of the typical home

Net floor area of typical apartment

xx

working hours/ monthly rent

xx%

Proportion of average income spent on rent for specific project; in the case of a user-occupied home, the proportion of monthly pay required to purchase a square meter of the evaluated home

Proportion of average income spent on average local rent; in the case of a user-occupied home, the proportion of monthly pay required to pu chase a square meter of the evaluated home

22- Area Area and Structure andUse Use Structure

CATEGORY

Zoning Spatial organization in terms of access, living spaces, and secondary spaces

Apartment

Use Flexibility Neutrality in terms of use, capacity to be adapted, capacity to be furnished Private Sphere Position of entrance, degree to which the structure can be seen into, the home’s orientation Open Areas The nature and size of the open areas

FAR xx xx

Gross story area, with proportional breakdown of the residential mix and the distribution of differing functions

persons/ha

Values for assessing quantitative and qualitative density

Comfort

Visual Character Orientation, size of openings, views of surroundings Ventilation Quality Natural/mechanical ventilation, cross-ventilation, non-ventilated rooms Acoustic Qualities Noise protection, filtering out of background noise, spatial acoustics Building Systems Heating/cooling technology, building automation, elevators

Area of plot

Fixtures

Kitchen Type and fixtures Bath Type and fixtures, natural lighting and ventilation Communication The type and qualities of spaces for interaction, communal facilities

Outdoor Areas

Hierarchy The form and gradations of access possibilities Links Connections to the public space, threshold points

Urban Planning

Proportions The volumetric form and subdivision in relation to the context

33- Characteristic Cost Values Cost Values

62

CRITERIA

Temperature The extent and nature of heating/cooling measures

Average regional monthly income

Values for assessing quantitative and qualitative density

VALUE

xx

€/m2

Plot costs relative xx €/m2 to construction costs

Public Transportation Access to bus and rail services

Connection

Provision Access to episodic and periodically required provision services

63

VinziRast – mittendrin

500 m

Vienna / Austria / 2013

Gaupenraub +/- Architects Vienna / Austria

47 After the end of the strike, the students continued to work for the homeless in the context of an association, which finally developed the idea of a shared housing project in a vacant baroque building.

78

fig 40 Site plan fig 41 Exterior view

During the student protests that took place in Vienna in 2009, people without accommodation mixed with students occupying the Audimax. These initial encounters quickly led to a sense of understanding and fellow feeling between these very different groups, which then produced an integrative living concept for homeless persons, former addicts, and students.47 The VinziRast idea was initiated. In this context, architecture was accorded a critical role in the fulfilling of social educational goals. Architecture aimed to create a sense of community life and to foster a sense of responsibility. Through participating in the construction project and taking part in community life, formerly homeless individuals are provided a form of support, thereby allowing them to find a way back into mainstream society.

When the construction developer Hans Peter Haselsteiner heard about the concept, he bought a listed Biedermeier house from the early nineteenth century, which he made available to initiators Peter Nitsche and Cecily Corti in order to allow them to carry out the visionary pilot project. At the same time, the architects Alexander Hagner and Ulrike Schartner were commissioned to develop the plan. They developed a spatial concept based entirely on communal coexistence, with encounter situations created by public and semipublic features. The idea was that this aspect of the spatial program would animate people to participate in the lives of their fellow residents. A cafĂŠ run by the community helps integrate non-residents into the concept.

The architects were able to take advantage of the block development’s corner position in order to orient the building in relation to the central inner courtyard. This inner courtyard is the

79

100

101

106

107

Mass housing “The century has been a losing battle with the issue of quantity.”50

Stigma 50 Koolhaas, Rem (1995): “What ever happened to urbanism?” In: S,M,L,XL (p. 959). New York

51 F., Christiane: Wir Kinder vom Bahnhof Zoo. Hannover/ Hamburg

114

In Europe, mass housing construction is a much-pilloried concept.

Even though now outdated, reservations against modernist structures remain lodged in the thinking of architects and planners.

Belief in modern planning on a grand scale vanished with the demolition of the Pruitt-Igoe housing project in St. Louis in 1972.

Ever since the nineteen-seventies, in Europe the courage to create large-scale residential district plans has been absent. Urban planning has instead been concerned with careful alignments, with the closing of construction gaps, and with the unfailingly politically correct recommendation that a daycare facility be built.

Behind this lies the slow dawn of the realization that structures built with light, air, and sun in mind in the modernist manner are not necessarily a panacea for happy districts.

As a result, the legacy of modernist urban planning has become notorious as a target for critiquing “inhuman structures”. The planners themselves were frequently given the role of neighborhood managers for inadequate districts and were permitted either to integrate the social deficiencies or, where this would be a doubtful approach, to segregate them—outside the architectural and spatial measures.

Against the background of the European city’s rising popularity, modernist structures have been reduced to a handy lightning rod for every imaginable deficiency—linked to shocking reports of the fates of individuals like Christiane F.51 and featured in the political condemnation of Paris’ Banlieues and their gangs of rebellious youths in 2008.

People forget that modernist city districts often provide the cheapest housing in a city and serve to prevent segregation. It is time to rethink our negative relationship with mass housing and to go

further by using the inspired qualities and inventive spirit of rapidly growing metropolitan areas as a source of inspiration.

The Rediscovery of Quantity Globally, the need for urban living space is rising. Plans often lack efficient organization, effective legal underpinning, good planners, and financial resources. In developing countries in particular, informal developments spring up—urban villages, favelas, kampungs— constituting arrival cities52 for rural migrants. This is a dynamic that functions outside of any aesthetically motivated or artistically inspired form of urban planning. It is simply a matter of people solving existential questions in their own way, through improvisation. The living conditions generally result in an unhygienic and inhumane state of affairs. Building large numbers of homes to a minimal standard is the order of the day.

In countries with an established planning culture, planning offices are often hampered by their limitations, as land policy, the market, and partisan interests delay or preclude the development of their visions. Often, the greatest enemy of urgently needed urban redevelopment is the vocal local resident, who exploits any offer of participation to block developments and to blindly shore up the status quo based on his own point of view. Because of the frequent shortage of building land, large-scale new planning projects are generally possible only in peripheral areas and redevelopment sites.

Real estate prices and land prices are skyrocketing, making it harder to obtain cheap urban accommodation. The population of German cities such as Munich and Munster is expected to grow by 10 percent over the next few years.53 Speaking in terms of quantity, it will not be possible to tackle this problem by means of isolated housing projects, and it can be expected to lead to greater disparity within cities. Both popular building association models and all similarly small-scale interventions and realignments are too slow and will not make the situation any less acute.

For growing metropolitan centers in countries such as China, India, or Mexico, mass housing is a necessary requirement, but the established western world needs to refocus on the quantitative dimension, in housing and the transformation of cities. A careful and critical assessment of previous experiences with modernist structures is needed in order to balance quantity with quality: “Once we know the number one, we believe that we know the number two, because one plus one equals two. We forget that first we must know the meaning of plus.” 54

52 Saunders, Doug (2011): Arrival City. Toronto

53 Regional statistics for Münster: Information und Technik Nordrhein-Westfalen: Geschäftsbereich Statistik (2011): Landesdatenbank NRW. Retrieved from www.landesdatenbank.nrw.de, 04.2014, Munich: Stadtwerk München GmbH (2014): München.de – Das offizielle Stadtportal. Retrieved from www.muenchen.de, 04.2014

54 The sentence derives from the character Alpha 60, a powerful computer and also creator of the dystopia Alphaville. See the eponymously named film by Jean-Luc Godard (1965)

115

150

151

fig 97 Tour Bois le Prêtre, p. 145

fig 98 Tour Bois le Prêtre, pp. 146/47

fig 99 Tour Bois le Prêtre, p. 148

fig 100 Vertical Village, p. 149

fig 101 Longhua Affordable Building, pp. 150/51

fig 102 Longhua Affordable Building, p. 152

fig 103 Longhua Affordable Building, p. 153

fig 104 Longhua Affordable Building, p. 154

fig 105 Longhua Affordable Building, p. 155

fig 106 Eurogate, pp. 156/57

fig 107 Eurogate, p. 158

fig 108 Eurogate, p. 159

fig 109 Eurogate, p. 160

160

161

Moriyama House

500 m

Tokyo / Japan / 2005

fig 116 Site plan

Ryue Nishizawa Tokyo / Japan

81 See fig 03, p. 14, in this book

82 16 millimeters of steel plate, 30 millimeters of insulation paneling, and 12 millimeters of plasterboard produce a wall structure that is only 5.8 centimeters thick.

174

fig 117 Exterior view

Since the nineteen-seventies, increased population pressure, combined with extremely high housing costs,81 has caused the urban living culture of Japan to experience a shift toward the small-apartment model. The minimizing of apartments has brought with it the externalization of various home functions—a development that has also benefited from sociocultural circumstances. Eating and bathing culture—and other functions, too— have moved out of the private sphere and into public spaces. The associated marginalization of kitchens and bathrooms has caused the remaining apartments to shrink further. Ryue Nishizawa’s design for the Moriyama House relates to this blurring of the boundaries between public and private functions by dissipating all but the most basic spatial cells of an apartment block into the urban structure of a Tokyo suburb.

The room plans of a number of apartments are contained within an agglomeration of freestanding and irregularly arranged volumes of different sizes. Together, the white cubes shape a sequence of outdoor spaces that blend seamlessly with the urban street space of the neighborhood. The Moriyama House blends together the dimensions of city and building, thereby suspending the usual boundaries between interior and exterior and between public, communal, and private spaces. Passers-by can enter the cube group via the open spaces; at that moment, they begin to participate in the lives of the residents.

Brilliant white both on the inside and out, the minimalist appearance of the exceptionally delicate construction82 makes one think of light boxes folded from fine paper. These enclose up to three stories. The apartments themselves are similarly reduced down

206

207

Prefabrication “Architecture produced as an industrial product would naturally become the new vernacular.”85

fig 151 Thomas Edison’s concrete house model. This image or media file contains material based on a work of a National Park Service employee, created as part of that person’s official duties. As a work of the U.S. federal government, such work is in the public domain. See the NPS website and NPS copyright policy for more information.

Theory 85 Kieran, Stephen/ Timberlake, James (2003): Refabricating Architecture: How Manufacturing Methodologies are Poised to Transform Building Construction (p.7). New York/ Chicago

86 Bryson, Bill (2010) “Chapter 10: The Passage.” In: At Home: A Short History of Private Life, London 210

Efforts to harness the advantages of industrial production for building go back to the beginning of the Industrial Revolution.

Joseph Paxton’s Crystal Palace—probably the most influential building of the nineteenth century, and a building that transformed our understanding of proportions, construction, and materials as no building had ever before—was a perfect example of industrial prefabrication. Even though this building measured approximately 615 (1,851 feet) × 150 meters and had an overall area of approximately 93,000 square meters, it was possible for it to be erected within the space of just thirty-five weeks because its elements—its supports, girders, and glass elements—were all uniform, all identical.

Thomas Edison’s successful formula for electrification rested on mapping out the whole of the supply chain. Edison was only able to market the light bulb because he also supplied the cable network for buildings and cities plus power generation. Edison tried to apply the same logic to his concrete production: the Poured Cement House serves to illustrate this. Edison recognized the potential of concrete as a construction material at an early stage; in 1899 he founded the Edison Portland Cement Company. He made significant advances in cement manufacture. In 1919, he applied to patent a device whose purpose was to produce a family home using the single-pour method. His stated aim was to develop high-quality and cost-effective housing for the low-income sector, a kind of Model T for the family home market. He calculated that these houses could be sold for around 1200 USD—just a third of the price of a conventional house of the time.86 The technique deployed steel formwork elements that were to be reused a number of times. The precisely

configured formwork was supposed to make any finishing work obsolete: the walls and ceilings were to be untreated cement, and even the stairs, windows, and picture frames were supposed to be created in concrete during the manufacturing process. Edison also developed concrete chairs, concrete cupboards, and a concrete piano as furnishings for the house. Although some prototypes were erected in New Jersey and Ohio, there were technical problems associated with handling the formwork, the flowing properties of the concrete, and compression: as a result, the whole undertaking appears simply rather amusing today.

The use of industrial materials, construction methods, and manufacturing techniques to create affordable and high-value living space for everyone was also a key concept for the CIAM modernists. In 1917 (at around the same time as Edison’s project), the Europe-based Charles-Edouard Jeanneret (later known as Le Corbusier) was working on his “Dom-ino” building system. Like Edison’s system, it was the product of an enthusiasm for the era’s most modern construction material‑steel-reinforced concrete—but also of his advisory role with S.A.B.A. (Societe d’Application du Beton Arme).87 Corbusier also founded a company, S.E.I.E. (Societe d’Entreprises industrielles et Etudes), concerned with researching concrete as a construction material; however, it went bankrupt only a few years later. His aim was to produce cost-effective living space for the areas of Europe devastated during the First World War. Above all, Corbusier was inspired by advances in production processes: large-scale production machinery and Taylorism88—the scientific organization of the production processes—which he regarded as the most important tool for transforming architecture and society.89 In Vers une architecture (1923), he devotes an entire chapter to the subject of pre-

87 See: McLeod, Mary (Summer 1983): “Architecture or Revolution‘: Taylorism, Technocracy, and Social Change.” In: Art Journal, 43 (2), pp.

132–147. Retrieved from http:// www.jstor.org/stable/776649, 03.2014

88 Taylor, Frederick Winslow (1922): The Principles of Scientific Management. New York 211

My Micro NYC

500 m

New York City / USA / 2014

fig 152 Site plan

nArchitects New York City / USA

98 See fig 03, p. 14, in this book 99 Schindler, Susanne (10.2012): “Was heisst: affordable?” In: Bauwelt, 10 (12), p. 13

100 Usually, 80 percent of apartments are offered for the standard market rent. For 20 percent of the apartments, the rents are subject to a limit, to remain in place for fifteen years. Schindler (2012) 101 AMI: Area Median Income 102 Of these, eleven apartments were offered to households with an income of 80 percent of AMI, five for households with an income of 145 percent of AMI and six to households with an income of 155 percent of AMI. These households pay out 30 percent of their gross income in rent. See the Official Website of the City of New York (22.01.2013): Mayor Bloomberg Announces Winner of Adapt NYC Competition to Develop Innovative Micro-unit Apartment Housing Model.

Retrieved from http://www1. nyc.gov/office-of-the-mayor/ news/032-13/mayor-bloombergwinner-em-adapt-nyc-emcompetition-develop-innovativemicro-unit#/2, 09.2014 216

fig 153 Exterior view

In Manhattan, luxury apartments are increasingly crowding out affordable housing that can be purchased by the medium- to low-wage population sections.98 Today, approximately a quarter of New York households spend 50 percent of their gross income on living space.99 In its efforts to generate reasonably priced living spaces, the city has been operating an extensive affordable housing support program since the nineteen-eighties. My Micro NY is a pilot project initiated by the city administration that breaks with the prevailing typological and construction dogmas in order to introduce innovative ideas into the affordable housing sector.

Investors tendering for plots owned by the city of New York are obliged to offer a certain percentage100 of homes as affordable apartments. The rent boundaries are based on the annually determined average income (to be specific, the AMI rate).101 My Micro NY shows an affordable housing percentage of 40 percent of apartments. In total, this amounts to twenty-one homes.102 In this way, living spaces in central Manhattan locations are created for people of medium incomes without direct civic subsidies. The architects proposed prefabricated apartment modules instead of the usual massive construction techniques. A conventional foundation is constructed on site. Once this has been done, the complete apartment modules can be delivered and mounted. Finally, a brick façade is superimposed. Prefabrication lowers the construction costs and shortens the duration of construction from the usual thirty months to eighteen, resulting in a saving in financing costs. This cost-effective construction method allows for an above-average percentage of affordable housing to be created.

217

252

253

Specific rent or 1purchase price / m2

Average local rent or 1purchase price / m2

Specific rent / av. income

Hypothetical av. local rent for same flat

Performance in relation to av. income ∆X

Performance in relation to av. rent ∆Y

Grundbau & Siedler 12,400 € 571 € VinziRast Standards 1 2,460 € Waterstad 118 € Interactive Housing 463 € Tour Bois le Prêtre 78 € Vertical Village Mass Housing 80 € Longhua Aff. Building 547 € Eurogate 65 € Urban Tulou Minimizing / Moriyama House 371 € Externalization Tanglang Village 119 € Schwarzer Laubfrosch 257 € 971 € My Micro NYC 1,152 € Prefabrication Kvistgård 467 € Mulhouse 1 3,107 € Balance Uster

3,500 € 634 € n.s.

238 € 1,121 € 108 € 107 € 861 € 141 € n.s.

133 € 360 € 1,173 € 1,310 € 1,352 € 7,500 €

n/a 21.0 n/a 21.0 21.0 14.0 14.0 20.0 11.0 19.0 21.0 10.0 31.0 44.0 21.0 n/a

n/a 24.0 n/a 42.0 50.0 19.0 19.0 32.0 25.0 n.s.

24.0 13.0 38.0 50.0 60.0 n/a

n/a 24.0 n/a 42.0 50.0 19.0 19.0 32.0 25.0 n.s.

24.0 13.0 38.0 50.0 60.0 n/a

n/a 24.0 n/a 42.0 50.0 19.0 19.0 32.0 25.0 n.s.

24.0 13.0 38.0 50.0 60.0 n/a

Measuring, Rating, and Extrapolating Best Practices Looking at the housing projects in the preceding chapters allows us to identify a number of different approaches to affordable housing. Comparing the projects and evaluating the results reveal a number of strategies. The compilation of projects in this book follows an inductive approach; based on values confirmed by experience and by measurable indicators, they represent a nonexhaustive catalog of specific procedures. This approach offers potentially transferable strategies for testing, which can serve as a source for inspiration and fresh ideas.

Project

Category

Affordability Patterns

residential buildings or financial conditions in other countries.

Accomplishment Factor The projects discussed in this book can be assessed through more general comparative quantities, regardless of typology. A local referQuantitative Rating (not Ranking!) ence value is provided by the average rent or purchasing price and Depicting the relation between a best-practise by the proportion of average earnings needed for monthly expenses, project and the local average which can be represented in graphical terms:

VR TV

Quantitative RatingLG (not Ranking!)

KG

SL VV

70

Depicting the relation between a best-practise project and the local average

Average Local Rent

100

50

80

LG SL VV

70

30

EG 20

60

50

UT

10 IH

TB 0

40

MH

UT MM

IH TB MH KG

rent / average rent (%)

VR TV 40

90

30

Average Local Income

EG

60

fig 189 Relative accomplishment value depicting the relation between a best practice of rental housing and the local average in relation to average rent and average income: P—Project Coordinates, Y2—Average local rent=100%, Y1—Specific project rent /Legend average rent, ∆Y—Performance in relation to average rent, X1—Specific project rent / average local income, X2—Hypothetical proportion for the same flat P ø rent extrapolated on base of average X1 local rent, ∆X—Performance in relation to average income rent / ø incom > projec Y 2

project Δ∆Y

P Average Local Income

258

MM

80 Factor Accomplishment

nt (%)

111 National Association of Realtors (2014): Methodology: About the Index. Retrieved from www.realtor.org/topics/housingaffordability-index/methodology, 07.2014

Leg

Average Local Rent

100

90

Numerical Cost Indicator Values and Their Limits It is not possible to directly compare absolute cost indicator values.

The local conditions—whether within a single city, on a national level, or in a global context—are too different, causing any attempt at a ranking to verge on the ridiculous. However, it is possible to look at the relative values and to thereby grade a project, to give it a rating.

The United States, for instance, has a system known as the Housing Affordability Index (HAI111), which links the average income to the monthly mortgage loan rates. It presupposes a deposit of 20 percent and a monthly rate limited to a maximum of 25 percent of income.

The HAI is set at 100. This means that the ratio is 1:1: that is, an average family’s income is just sufficient to qualify for a loan and to cover the monthly payments. A higher value—110 percent—signifies that 110 percent of the money necessary for a loan of the same type is available. This measure reflects the interest rate thanks to a monthly survey, which enables the affordability of housing at any given time to be established. This value, however, is only valid for the average American family home. It does not cover typologies of multi-story

fig 188 Evaluation of project parameters based on available data. Unless otherwise stated, all values in %.

rent / average income (%)

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

X1

Δ∆X

X2

Y1

rent / ø income > project 100 project

average reference va 259