Background Housing prices, both purchase and rental, continue to rise in Barcelona and in most main European cities, in contrast to the purchasing power of the majority of their citizens This creates a significant social problem, seriously limiting and often negating a fundamental right of the people to have access to housing, and forces an urban exodus of large sectors of the population. Cities thus lose basic elements of their identity and become urban "no-places", defined by financial dynamics and interests, detached from their own culture, and oblivious to values such as equity, cohesion and cultural diversity. It's crucial to qualify the uncontrolled curve of real estate financial speculation, as a "unique" focus, so the investment system continues to function, but not in a self-destructive manner, and not destroying the urban social fabric nor its cultural and social networks. In this sense, the 4th industrial revolution, ICT’s sensorization and new building design technologies –BIM-, in conjunction with the growing use of flexible financial formulas to gain access to land and housing, such as leasing or co-ownership, are starting to make possible significant reductions in the cost of access to housing. Moving away from thinking that housing is only private property to thinking that it can be of shared use - “housing as a service”- implies a new paradigm with similar kinds of implications and technological dynamics that are driving the automotive sector, for example, to design mobility as a service in favor of cost reduction, property sharing and an increased sustainability and quality of life in cities. To enable a solid and transversal implementation of this new housing paradigm using in Barcelona, we present the Vive Project Platform.
Project VIVE: Housing as a Service
The Project VIVE is a game-changing open source platform aimed to positively boost affordable housing in Barcelona, through a combination of complementary elements: The Platform VIVE, a circular methodology operating transversally from the people to the city and the other way round, connecting all the different interest groups of any social housing project: city council, governmental authorities, residents or neighborhood organizations, NGO’s, potential inhabitants, architects, contractors, town planners, manufacturers, researchers and developers of new building technologies, etc. ON, a web-based information area that helps to identify real opportunities in empty, affordable buildings and land areas in Barcelona. PLAN, a system to help architects, urbanists and citizens to design affordable housing buildings, flats or modules using different tools in the cloud. AhouS Scoring System, a free open-source framework with a community platform in the cloud to promote the optimized development of affordable, sustainable and socially responsible dwellings. It makes it possible to easy to evaluate the feasibility and quality of an affordable housing project, identifying its strengths and weaknesses, highlighting key areas of improvement. BiZ, a complementary ICT / sensor-based system to collectively achieve and manage new business and assets sharing in a social dwelling.
Rema, a complementary ICT / sensor-based system to collectively manage life in a social dwelling –maintenance, energy management, use of collective services, etc.
Database diagram
ON: affordable land information system
ON: An information area to help make possible the communal acquisition of land. ON database: An interactive map of the real opportunities of empty and affordable buildings and land areas in Barcelona, such as: https://elpais.com/ccaa/2019/02/03/catalunya/1549216357_178426.html ON land lease information: information of different kinds of innovative forms of land leases that preclude speculation, and thus make land available as a low-cost platform for society and the economy. ON lobby group: A group of collaborating institutions we have already started to contact: Open Systems, La Dinamo, La Borda, etc. committed to making possible a high-quality, affordable, sustainable and socially responsible use of land. How the ON scoring system evaluates social land projects: Considering land costs, financial cost, sustainability, social benefits, public interest and the enhancement of satisfaction of a social use of land, as well as improving the urban environment.
PLAN: affordable housing design system
PLAN: A system to help architects, urbanists and citizens design affordable housing buildings, flats or modules using different tools in the cloud.
PLAN BIM design: BIM (Building Information Modelling) technologies in the cloud, that can include a database, software applications and hardware tools in order to choose and evaluate the most efficient and flexible design options, using sustainable / ecological / recyclable / alternative materials (wood, iron, concrete, robotic wood, air-dry clay 3D, mycelium research, stone spray, minibuilders and 3D printed structures). Offsite prefabrication through modular buildings or modular sections will be an option, just recommending the most suitable manufacturers in the city, taking in consideration AhouS score (isolation, efficiency, savings of costs, savings of CO2 emissions, etc.). Features: graphic planning, automatic linking of items, interaction of tasks, assisted calculation, export of the budget model, multiplatform. PLAN BIM c ollaborative platform: Allows the agents of the construction process to generate and share knowledge in a collaborative environment, in order to make all aspects of buildings or infrastructures more efficient. Two confirmed partners of the platform are the ITeC, Institut Català de Technologies de la Construcció https://metabase.itec.cat/vide/es/bedec and the Institute of Advanced Architecture of Catalonia https://iaac.net/ PLAN lobby group: A group of collaborating companies and institutions we have already in meetings with: ITeC, IAAC, Fab Lab Barcelona, Fab Lab Boston, WikiHouse, etc.
AhouS: affordable housing scoring system
AhouS: A scoring system that makes it possible to easily evaluate the feasibility and quality of an affordable housing project, knowing its strengths and weaknesses and main improvement areas. AhouS commitment: Optimized development of affordable, sustainable and socially responsible housing, providing free innovative technical tools for housing projects, and identifying multidimensional housing projects evaluations to aide in decision-making. AhouS benefits: a key tool to enable high-quality, affordable, sustainable and socially responsible housing. How the Ahous scoring system evaluates social housing projects: It considers construction costs and future building maintenance, financial costs and economic restrictions, sustainability, social benefits, public interest and the enhancement of satisfaction of dwellers’ needs, flexibility and adaptability of use, as well as improving the urban environment connecting the different stakeholders. Easy to use: By answering a few questions about different project elements and uploading the housing project in a standard construction data exchange file format http://www.fiebdc.es
AhouS Affordable housing Stakeholders:
Public Sector: Ensure the right to housing for all residents, promoting a high-quality and sustainable, affordable Public Housing Stock below market prices. Currently, the Public Sector cannot build all the housing it needs to cover the current demand. Ahous, together with the VIVE Project will help the public sector to partner civil society and the people to develop new public housing stock. Architects, engineers and town planners: Provide the best technical, cost, time quality and sustainable designs solutions. Currently, there are no tools for measuring the multidimensional cost benefit analysis of their designs. Home buyers and renters: Achieve the housing that best meets their needs as well as their budget restrictions, yet they rarely influence the design or get information about rates of quality, costs evaluation, social contributions, housing investment returns or community benefits.
Neighborhood residents or associations: Improve and solve the deficits of the urban environment and social cohabitation, however they can’t get enough information about new housing projects and their opinion is not always a driver of decision. Housing promoters and banks: Promote and finance housing, efficiently minimizing the level of risk, but they don’t have enough information about important elements of the decision. Housing cooperatives and social economy entities: Promote housing projects fulfilling social values, but for them it is difficult to quantify social values into a housing project.
AhouS: How AhouS algorithms work
Answering Sustainability: Using university / experts group models or parameters for materials and energy efficiency and ITEC database mapping. Modular technologic or innovative construction: IA analysis about experts contributions. Budget and cost comparator: Using data from external databases, construction measurements (ITEC), housing statistics, Housing Affordability Indexes, experts parameters, execution timing. Public interest: Public administrations parameters or interests, strategic programs compliance. Optimized Common Uses: Using experts’ parameters of flexibility and modification or optimization of the use of community spaces. Social innovation and urban benefits: Incorporating different evaluator parameters. Dwellers’ needs and opinions: IA algorithms for evaluation of opinions and contributions from potential dwellers and neighborhood residents.
BiZ: Additional Business and bartering BIZ: A scoring and management system that makes it possible to easily evaluate the feasibility and quality of additional business in the building, both privately and as a community. BIZ management: Optimized system including evaluation and recommendations, offers, management of collections or exchanges and administration, and providing multidimensional housing projects evaluation for decision-making. BiZ benefits: a key tool to make possible a constant, affordable, transparent, sustainable and socially responsible additional business for each neighbor and every community. Room and flat rental or bartering: Ensure the option to rent or barter of both rooms and flats for all residents, promoting high-quality, sustainable and transparent deals with users or neighbors. Car park rental or bartering: Ensure the option to rent or barter car park spaces for all the residents, promoting high-quality, sustainable and transparent deals with users or neighbors. Sustainable energy rental or bartering: Create the option to rent or barter sustainable energy produced by the residents or the community, promoting high-quality, sustainable and transparent deals with users or neighbors. This option may only be feasible in the future, according to local regulations. Examples of new ways to generate additional business and / or bartering real estate spaces: Nextdoor App and Booking website, Barcelona
REMA: Reactive Management App REMA uses sensors, smart devices and mobile based solutions to address objectives in two levels: For the infrastructure: ● Understand facilities’ use patterns ● Improve Maintenance cost patterns and preventive maintenance planning ● Optimize Energy efficiency purposes. ● Resource accounting and material flow analysis. ● Autonomous drones will be used as a peripheral of the management system for maintenance purposes.
For Inhabitants: ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ●
Provide Access to: Services, Small Vendors, Jobs within community, Community Activities, Shared Areas, Common Facilities Rate Services. Virtual reality, as a way to co-design and manage housing cooperatively.
Infrastructure and Resources Management
Community Services Management
REMA in a glimpse
Infrastructure and Resources Management: CMU can contact with vendors to address Dwelling Unit necessities using BlockChain protocols. The user can rate the provided service.
Community Services Management: Inhabitants can access small vendors and addresses small vendors and lock up shared services.
VIVE: members of the working group Antoni Lisbona, data scientist and Chief Financial Officer of BuConDa. Rubén González, physicist, expert on environmental risk management. Mariela Brito Luna, urbanist, expert in social innovation. Santi Mas de Xaxàs, entrepreneur, activist in the area of social housing. Eric Arnout Kleinjan, management and financial consultant, investor in start-ups. Elizabeth Breedlove, Technology Sales expert, AI Projects Jeremy Gleiberman, architect, co-founder of TBi. Jose Campos, urbanist, Manager of Planning and Design Review, office of community investment and infrastructure, California. Xavier Costa, co-founder of TBi.
Diagrams information
Infographics and diagrams. Own elaboration. 2019 Editing icons based on the design of Freepik and Tilda Publishing, Recovered from: h ttps://freepik.es and h ttps://tilda.cc
Attached Documents
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