FUNDING STRATEGY

from Dopo Scoula, Document 2 - Politecnico di Milano

by Eleanor Jones MArch Politecnico di Milano

THE ARCHITECT’S ROLE

Residents-Makers

Residents interested in restoring the building and living an alternative self-build lifestyle

Potential Funding Networks

Traditionally Italy’s suburban housing was built by homeowners and this movement continued until the mid 1960s-70s. A resurgence in self building in both illegal and legal forms has emerged in Italy and a number of cooperatives and municipality funded organisations have been established to help fund self-build community projects across Italy.

In the south of Italy initiatives like Aliseicoop was set up to fund and support self-build communities. In the Lombardy region the RESP was set up which offered to support 20% of the building cost.

The model for the school’s self-build renovation draws on the precedents of these groups and imagines a situation in which the project is funded in part by an similar organisation such as Aliseicoop and supported by the local municipality in the sense that the group of residents is given the school building for free in exchange for renovating and restoring it.

The school is currently stagnant due to its large expense to the municipality and it is imagined they are willing to give the building, alongside reduced taxes or a tax holiday whilst the residents are able to restore it and make it a valuable asset within the community. The residents themselves raise extra funds through go-fund me’s and through some residents philanthropic investment.

building for free

Provides

Residents able to do the building works

Residents with expertise

Residents set up public go-fund me

Building is restored and contributes to the community - no longer a cost to the municipality Historic

Provides 20% of funds

Residents have an affordable low-cost living, designed to their own needs

Affordable Housing

-providing local people the means to live affordably, sustainably, as a community and allowing them the autonomy to design their homes around their daily life and practices.

Temporal Use and Restoration

-in exchange for being allowed to inhabit the building the residents will carry out the restoration and maintenance of the building. Equally the self standing structures cause little to no impact on the existing building and can be dismantled and removed should the building be desired to be repurposed again.

The Architect as a collaborator

-the architect’s role becomes collaborative with the residents, providing design insight and solutions to the module design, while allowing residents a level of autonomy to choose how their home functions for them.

The Scuola project may have started by a select group of individuals who were interested in the idea of converting the school into affordable housing and at the same time restoring the building and engaging with the local community. These founding group members may then recruit the remaining members through advertisements such as the poster (right), which call for other interested individuals to join the group. The success of the project relies on the willingness of the members to be bold and take a leap of faith to renovate the building and invest their time and energy into building their home and restoring the building in order for themselves and others to have access to affordable housing in the future and for the iconic building to be restored back to its role as a vital organ of the local community.

HYPOTHETICAL RESI-MAKERS

To conceive the renovation of the school without the input of local government, the theory was suggested of a built from below strategy.

In the hypothetical scenario presented the school is renovated into housing by self-declared group of local invested people who either cannot find affordable housing in the area or have a particular interest in restoring the architecture and seek an alternative way of living.

This self-organised group of individuals will come together to live in the building whilst they rennovate and restore and retrofit it into suitable affordable housing.

The hypothetical group is conceived of young couples and individuals who seek an affordable interesting and sustainable alternative housing who are temporarily out of work and able to contribute to the construction and live in the school at the same time, who are students, researchers and experts in the field of architecture and restoration and have a passion for restoring the building and engaging with the process of construction or who are perhaps an older family seeking an alternative for of living which they can give back to their environment,

The total number of hypothetical resi-makers is 18 across the 12 units. They will have a degree of autonomy over their own unit’s design but also aspire to build housing that can be used for affordable renting in the event they move out once they have finished the project. In the meantime the residents will live on the site

Key

Marianne Author and Researcher on Sustainability