THE ROLE OF PUBLIC HOUSING IN BARCELONA by Raül P. Avilla Royo
Architectural Association School Of Architecture Projective Cities Programme 2016-2018
ARCHITECTURAL ASSOCIATION SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE GRADUATE SCHOOL
COVERSHEET FOR SUBMISSION 2016-18 PROGRAMME:
MPhil in Architecture and Urban Design
Projective Cities 2016-2018 TERM: V STUDENT NAME:
Raül P. Avilla Royo
SUBMISSION TITLE:
The Role of Public Housing in Barcelona
COURSE TITLE:
Dissertation
COURSE TUTORS:
Sam Jacoby, Platon Issaias
SUBMISSION DATE:
25 May 2018
DECLARATION: “I certify that this piece of work is entirely my/our own and that any quotation or paraphrase from the published or unpublished work of others is duly acknowledged.” Signature of Student:
Date: 25.05.2018
This dissertation contains 15.480 words.
THE ROLE OF PUBLIC HOUSING IN BARCELONA Dissertation submited in partial fulfilment of the requirements of Taught Master of Philosophy in Architecture and Urban Design by RaĂźl P. Avilla Royo
Architectural Association School Of Architecture Projective Cities Programme 2016-2018
I would like to thank my supervisors and tutors during my time at the AA, dr. Sam Jacoby, dr. Platon Issaias, dr. Mark Campbell and dr. Maria Giudici for their continued advice and challenging conversations. I would like to thank all friends and colleagues in Projective Cities, Barcelona and Morpeth Street, that have certainly enriched this dissertation through endless discussions. I would also like to thank the people in Barcelona who agreed to be interviewed selflessly during this research: Iván Gallardo (Barcelona Housing Management Department), Josep Bohigas (Head of Barcelona Planning Agency - Barcelona Regional), Anna Vergès (Head of Barcelona Housing Observatory), Fco. Javier Navarro Rodríguez and Eloi Artau (AMB), David Bravo, and Lalí Daví (laCol). Thanks to Ibon Bilbao and Caterina Figuerola for the opportunity of participating in public housing competitions during the past two years, which has allowed me to understand public housing procurement from the inside. Thanks to Eva Avilla, Daniela Bustamante and Casimiro Avilla for their proofreading. Thanks to the AA for supporting me with a bursary. And very specially, my deepest gratitude to Pime. This dissertation is dedicated to you.
“Good design becomes meaningless tautology if we consider that man will be reshaped to fit whatever environment he creates. The long-range question is not so much what sort of environment we want, but what sort of man we want.�
Robert Sommer, 1969, 172.
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Index Introduction 10 Proposed Strategy 12 An Iconographic Approach To Barcelona 15 1. Barcelona, Who Do You Get Pretty For? 23 Housing 27 Procurement 31 Why Live Together 34 Design: Masterplan And Procurement 42 2. Inside Out 47 Standards 47 Domestic Project 51 Design: Halls, Thresholds And Passages 58 From Social To Typological Diagrams 90 3. From Object To Subject 95 Daily Politics 96 Boundaries Of The Common 105 From Social Groups To Housing Typology 109 Design: Urban Housing Artefacts 118 Safaretjos 120 Ronda De Dalt 136 Eixample 146 Protocols Of Negotiation 161 Conclusions 165 Bibliography 172 Image Sources 176 Annex 1: The Social Role Of Public Housing Annex 2: Housing: Object, Political Device And City Strategy
178 190
Abstract In every major city, housing is being disputed as a right and as a commodity within a transformation process that affects its urban fabric as much as its social structure. Architecture and urban design play major roles in these transformations, as they are seen as instruments both by public authorities and developers. Barcelona is set as a case study due to the crucial role that design and architecture have historically had in the transformation of the city, both morphologically and symbolically. Due to a context of socio-political and economic crisis, the discipline of architecture has shifted its approach regarding professional practice, administration and academia. For that reason, Barcelona offers the opportunity to study alternative procurement models that challenge the role of city administration, dwellers and architects during the procurement process by proposing alternative tenureship and management models that can prevent the commodification of housing and the inclusion of more agents in the design process. This study will analyse the impact of local communities and dwellers both during the design process and once the building is inhabited, reconsidering notion of standards – “what” and “for whom” – and shifting the design process starting point towards the domestic space.
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Introduction The city of Barcelona has a problem in the access to
which represent different conditions in terms of social groups,
housing as a consequence of ten years of political, economic
tenureship models, residence time, ownership scheme and
and social crisis, aggravated by a process of gentrification. In
management.. From that entry point, the social, economic and
this situation, housing is at the centre of a socio-political debate,
domestic benefits that emerge from this new form of mixed
being disputed between the “right to dignified housing” and
tenureship, as well as the potential problems it entails, will be
the “right to private property”. This situation takes place in
analysed. A set of topics emerges from this approach, such as
a country that has practically no public housing stock (1,1%),
the redefinition of standards to address unpredictable household
where the vast majority (80%) of housing creation is market
compositions, the acceptance of dwellers to share facilities, the
driven, and where alternative modes of ownership such as
use and negotiation of common areas and the increasing use of
rental or cooperatives have been traditionally discouraged by
the house as a productive space. Thus, this situation brings the
the administration. As a result of unaffordable housing, the so-
need to reconsider the role of inhabitants in decision-making
called floating population is pushing locals out of traditional
and management of building, as well as defining tasks for the
neighbourhoods , displacing them towards the periphery of
architect during the stages of procurement and occupation of
the city, while traditional businesses are being substituted by
the building.
international franchises. While 2008 brought a collapse in the economy by means of the bursting of the real estate bubble, in 2011, the Indignados 15M movement evidenced a general discontent and raised awareness of the political and social circumstances.
Firstly, the historical conditions that brought Barcelona to this situation are explored as well as the circumstances under which people would agree to live together in a cultural context that finds psychological security in personal isolation. Secondly, the proposed scheme redefines the standards through
In order to reverse the situation, a significant increase in
which public housing is procured in relation to households
public housing stock is needed. Furthermore, this dissertation
and the spatial unit that comprises the domestic space. Finally,
proposes a public housing policy that includes alternative
I will study the need to re-politicize housing procurement by
procurement schemes, standards and social agenda. The
means of direct participation in decision making and how the
proposed strategy seeks to redefine the unit with which public
new situation of designing for existing communities impacts
housing is designed, procured and owned: from the nuclear
on architects roles and housing typologies. The theoretical
family flat to a larger habitational unit formed by the mixture of
discussion is supported by literature review, analysis of case
three existing non-commodifiable housing models in Barcelona:
studies and designs.
public housing, emergency shelters and housing cooperatives,
Aim: To propose an alternative housing policy and model of tenureship that prevents housing to become a commodity and reconsiders users needs in terms of household, affordability and adaptability. To do so by using existing housing models and administrative tools
Research Questions: Â Disciplinary: What is the role and responsibility of architects within local communities to change the way housing is procured and designed? Urban: How can a mixed housing model and tenureship have an impact on local neighbourhoods, and which spaces emerge from it? Typological: What are the housing standards and housing typologies that emerge with new household compositions and ownership models?
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Proposed Strategy Under the current circumstances of housing shortage and lack of affordability in Barcelona, the local government is encouraging public housing stock in a way that it stays under public or collective management. This dissertation evaluates this situation in the city, and argues for a broader shift in dwelling policies in terms of procurement, standards, and social agenda. The proposed strategy targets the following objectives: 1. Increment significantly the public housing stock and distribute it equitably throughout the city; 2. Include different agents in the process of procurement; 3. Diversify property and tenureship; 4. Recognize the variety and unpredictability of households; 5. Promote an alternative model for economic integration; 6. Offer different forms of socialisation and activities related to housing; and 7. Redefine the role of the architect in the design process. The aforementioned goals will be achieved through a mixture of three existing housing schemes in the city which are nowadays procured separately – public housing (publicly procured and designed via competition), cooperative housing (a recent model in Barcelona, collective leasing of land and decision making) and emergency shelters (for short-term necessities, managed by independent foundations). I argue that this new composite scheme may produce many potential benefits. Firstly, a diversified property and tenureship avoids the commercialization of public housing. Secondly, it can promote local economy and sources of income (e.g. from rental of work spaces or rooms) and production of solar energy. Thirdly, it encourages a mix of social groups and residence time, as well as community support environments, and secures the possibility for the inhabitants of a given neighbourhood to stay in the area, in addition to their involvement in decision making. In fourth place, it allows the possibility to reconsider the house typology based on unpredictable households and needs. And finally, a positive impact in the neighbourhoods where these projects are implemented could be obtained by making available a set of shared services, such as public facilities or commercial spaces. In addition, if these projects are built along the city and involve more people they can encourage the growth of a selfmanaged network of associations and cooperatives which can have a larger impact on the city.
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TABLE. Existing vs. Proposed Existing scheme: three housing models procured separately. Public
Cooperative
Emergency
Ownership
Rent (if stays under public ownership)
Cooperative leasing (any building has already been completed, one under construction).
Foundation (leasing).
Management
Public institution
Self-managed
Foundation
Building Size
From 15 to 200 houses
30 to 50 members
Variable
Inhabitant
Youth, low-middle income
Cooperative members
Families at risk of exclusion
Financing
Public investment
Private and credit from cooperative banks
Foundation trough public funds
Residence time
Indefinite
75 to 90 years
Variable (short)
Typology
Nuclear standardised family 2/3 rooms with hierarchy and a common area. Room equals bedroom. (higher market value).
No standards (new model).
Autonomous rooms with kitchen and bathroom
Common areas
Minimum (entrance, staircase, occasionally rooftop)
Several: meeting room, guest Small living room outside the rooms, laundry room, house. rooftop, kitchenette.
Proposed: mix of the three models in a larger scheme. Public Ownership
Cooperative
Emergency
Public Public institution (affordable rent)
Cooperative (leasing)
Foundation (leasing)
Management
Public institution
Self-managed
Foundation
Building Size
From 15 to 200 houses
30 to 50 members
Variable
Inhabitant
Anyone needed, for a limited Cooperative members time
People at risk of exclusion
Financing
Public investment
Private and credit from cooperative banks
Foundation through public funds
Residence time
Several Years (income revision)
75 to 90 years
Variable (short)
Typology
Variable household Grow-shrinking house Guest rooms
Cluster housing
Semi-autonomous rooms with kitchenette and bathroom, possibility of enlarging rooms.
Common areas
Entrance, staircase, rooftop
Several: meeting room, guest Shared living room and rooms, laundry room, kitchen at the end of the house. rooftop, kitchenette.
To be agreed between the three management administrations. Potentially: library and study room, games room, kitchen and dining and living room, playground or garden, storage spaces, meeting spaces, solar and energy installations, laundry room, bike parking, workshops and working spaces, car-sharing parking, multi-purpose room.
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3,2 mill population 36 municipalities
0
0 5km
Barcelona’s administrative limit Airport (44 mill. passengers/year) Railways (3,8 mill passengers/year) Boats (2,6 mill/year) Roads
BARCELONA CITY 1,6 mill population 1 municipality, 10 districts
METROPOLITAN BARCELONA METROPOLITAN BARCELONA 100m 0
0
100m 5000
CONTEXT
An iconographic approach to Barcelona
... context is a sum of fragments. ...a thousand images would hardly describe the complexity of a context in which chronology, disciplines, characters and discussions overlap chaotically... ...this iconography should be read as an architect reads a plan... there is no beginning and no end...
...just an attempt to explain a series of complementary facts that interrelate
either in time or space
...every presented image is symptomatic of a particular story
... I invite the reader to choose his own path, to make his own way on the understanding of the city,
to trace his own relations...
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October 17, 1986. Barcelona is designated host for the 1992 Olympic Games. Pascual Maragall, the Mayor, explodes in enthusiasm.
1859. Ildefons Cerdà designs the new masterplan for Barcelona that included the demolition of the medieval walls. After 150 years, it is still incomplete.
XIIth Century, port of Barcelona. During the medieval ages the economy of the city was related to the port, that became one of the most important ones of the Mediterranean.
May 15, 2011. 15M Indignados (Occupy Movement) takes Catalonia Square claiming a shift in the political situation of the country.
Barcelona in 1915 according to a French cartographer. On September 11, 1714 Borbonic troupes crossed the medieval wall ending the war of succession.
Barcelona keeps going under big transformations. In 2014 a competition took place for Glòries Square, the centre of Cerdà Plan.
May 14, 2015. Ada Colau, previously an activist, becomes the Mayor of Barcelona and promises control over gentrification and a deep shift in Barcelona housing policies.
Metropolitan Barcelona in a typical transit news at breakfast time. Accesses to Barcelona and circular highways are collapsed.
Catedra Viaplana and the “generation of 1980” marked an epoch in ETSAB. Left to right: Gallego, Arias, Viaplana, Burillo, Gil, Noguerol, Bru, Pla, Torres Nadal, Codinachs and Miralles.
Spain built in 2004 more housing than Germany, Italy and France together. Construction represented roughly a 10% of NGP.
Ciutat Vella, Barcelona’s medieval city, undertakes a deep process of transformation for the Olympics, including public housing, public space and facilities.
Pascual Maragall grants Oriol Bohigas with the Medal of the City. The transformation of the city for the Olympics, “Barcelona Model”, was a result of the alliance of polititians and architects.
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Supervivienda hero (SuperHousing) holds a poster “Housing out of the market as education and healthcare” . Ada Colau, activist of the PAH, Platform of the Affected by the Mortgages.
“City or Theme Park. Barcelona must decide how to manage the impact of tourism, which discomforts many citizens but represents a 13% of the city’s income” February 2, 2017.
The construction of La Borda, the first cooperative building of Barcelona, starts in 2017. Designed by laCol cooperative of architects, the end of construction is planned for 2018.
France train station was completed in 1929. Railways were a crucial infrastructure for the industrial development of the City.
“Barcelona is not for sale” Demonstration on June 10, 2017.
Casa Bloc, GATCPAC, Sant Andreu, 1936-36. Le Corbusier’s rationalistic ideas take the form of a working class housing in the outskirts.
A photograph of Rambla Catalunya by Francesc Català Roca. Estimated 1960s.
Construction of perimetral highways as part of the Olympics transformation. In the image, the construction of the coast ronda in 1991.
June 19, 1987. A car bomb caused the death of 21 people in a supermarket, in Sant Andreu neighbourhood. It was the biggest attack of ETA in its history.
A homeless person sleeping in the street is confronted with an advertisement praising for Barcelona as “the best shop of the world”
A map of the use of social media in Barcelona. Blue (locals), red (tourists) and yellow (either). Source: Erich Fisher.
Real-estate bubble. Evolution of housing prices: market (blue) and public (green) from 1995 to 2016.
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Transit in road Source: 3000.000km.net
infrastructure.
November 20, 1975. “Spanish, Franco is dead”. Carlos Arias Navarro, president of the government, announcing on public television the decease of the dictator.
May 1 2014. Protest Rally becomes a tourist attraction. This image had a strong impact on the perception that citizens had of tourists.
“Barcelona, get pretty”. Campaign to embellish the city’s façades from 1985 to 1990. It improved a third of the buildings of the city.
September 11, Catalonia National Day. Since 2010 more than a million people support the independence of the region on massive demonstrations.
“Our goal is to be the best city in Europe.” Pascual Maragall, Barcelona Mayor, announces big changes for the city in the late1980s.
laCol collective of architects. A bottom-up participative initiative formed by fourteen young architects.
Jose Antonio Coderch, Casa de la Marina, 1952.
Eixample is bombed during Spanish Civil War 193639. Many intellectuals went to exile, such as Picasso or Machado, and architects such as Sert or Bonet Castellana.
Vapor Vell, confederate swimming pool of the socialized wood in Sants neighbourhood. Date unknown, estimated first quarter of the XXth Century.
Cathedral of Barcelona, original façade. A gothic facade was built in 1882 for the occasion of the Exhibition of 1888.
Plà Macià for Barcelona, 193235, Le Corbusier and Gatcpac. The plan included the demolition of the vast majority of the city.
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“SOS Spain”. Spain has not recovered from the world economic crisis of 2008.
Demolition of factories took place in the late 1980s in order to build the Olympic Village, in Poblenou neighbourhood.
Demonstration against gentrification. The impact of tourism is perceived by neighbours as a threat. Date unknown, estimated in Barceloneta neighbourhood around 2006.
Manuel de Solà Morales run the “Laboratory of Urbanism” in ETSAB. He was a key figure in Barcelona’s planning.
Barcelona from z=40km. Astronaut Paolo Nespoli photographs the city from the International Space Station in 2011.
Main GDP components 2000-2014. Construction drops drastically from 2007 (yellow). Public investment decreases after 2010 (brown).
Regeneration of the beach, Poblenou 1988. After burying the highway, the city opens itself towards the sea as a major leisure area.
The airport of Barcelona was expanded in 1992 for the Olympics. It was expanded again in 2009. In 2016 it handled more than 44 mill. passengers, being the 7th busiest airport of Europe.
July 3, 2000. Enric Miralles Moya passes away at the age of 45. Considered by many the most outstanding Catalan architect after Antoni Gaudí.
June 2 1985. Spain’s president Felipe Gonzalez signs the adhesion of the country to the EU. European funds were crucial to develop the country.
September 1931, barricade blocks in Princesa street during a general strike. Being Barcelona an industrial city, worker’s protests were frequent in the first third of XXthC.
2007. Implantation of Bicing, a public bike rental system. It currently has 420 stations and 161km of bike lane (planned 308 by 2019).
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Arquitectos de Cabecera, an academic alternative approach from Barcelona School of Architecture (ETSAB), since 2013 as a response to the disciplinary and social crisis.
2008. FAD Award is granted to Lopez-Rivera for a public social youth housing.
“Houses without people, people without houses” 3.000 evictions took place every year in Barcelona during the first years of crisis, since 2008.
Antoni Gaudí, 1952-1926. A referent of the Catalan regional Beaux-Arts Movement (Modernisme).
View of Montjuïc mountain’s slums in 1950. Barcelona was an industrial city under a pollution smog. This area was transformed to locate the major Olympic facilities.
1930. Josep Lluís Sert. Housing in Rosselló Street, an example of the left-side Eixample for working class.
1992. From 25 July to 9 August the XXV modern Olympic Games were held in Barcelona. The city was the background of the swimming pools.
Ricardo Bofill Taller d’Arquitectura, Walden 7, 1976. A massive cellular building as an affordable alternative to housing estates.
1893. The bomb of Liceu, Barcelona’s opera house and a symbol of bourgeoisie. An anarchist attach caused the death of 20 people.
PEUAT 2017: Special Urban Plan for Tourist Accomodations. City council urban strategy to deal with the problematic of tourism.
From 1972 to 1980 Rafael Moneo exerted a tremendous influence in ETSAB, being professor of Architectural Theory.
1904. Casa Amatller. Josep Puig i Cadafalch, in Passeig de Gràcia. An outstanding example of the first Eixample.
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1977. “Here I am!” Catalan president Josep Tarradelles comes back from exile. Catalan constitution was approved in 1979. First democratic elections took place in 1980.
2004. May 9-September 26. Strongly criticized, “Cultures’ Forum” takes place at the end of Diagonal Avenue.
A tourist map of Barcelona in the 1990s. Nothing is mapped east of Glories square.
396.943 foreclosures took place in Spain during 2006-2011. Several people committed suicide at the time of the eviction. (no official data found).
2002. Spain joins the Euro and abandons “Peseta”. 1euro = 166,386ptas.
Francesc Català Roca, “barefoot gipsy girl”, 1950s. A view towards the centre of the city from Montjuïc.
1992. Ronald Koeman scores a goal in Wembley Stadium for Barça football club to win its first Champions League. Barça is one of the main reasons why Barcelona is known worldwide.
Bellvitge polygon in 1987. Extensive National Housing Plans were developed in the city in order to house large amount of slum dwellers that resulted from massive migrations from countryside.
Barcelona before Plà Cerdà. Topographic survey by Ildefons Cerdà. The medieval city was the most dense of Europe at that time, presenting severe hygienic problems.
PGM: General Metropolitan Plan, 1974. Still current with minor modifications.
Evolution of Cerdà’s block from Cerdà’s design to further regulations.
Since 2000, 22@ neighbourhood is the result of the conversion of an industrial urban fabric (code 22a) into a technological district.
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CHAPTER 1
Barcelona, Who Do You Get Pretty For?
In recent years Barcelona has become a desirable destination for both leisure and business. This is not a coincidence, but the result of a long-time city transformation policy that had the major manifestation in the 1992 Olympic Games. “Our goal is to be the best city in Europe” stated Pascual Maragall, mayor of the city between 1982 and 1997,1 at the time when Barcelona was appointed to host the Olympic Games in 1992. After four decades of military government, the country was finally opening its
1. “Our goal is to be the best city in Europe” Pascual Maragall, Major of Barcelona 1982-1997. Source: el Periodico newspaper.
borders with the enthusiasm of a recently re-established democracy and the promise of economic growth. The transformations that took place in the city for the Olympics were known as the “Barcelona Model”. It consisted of urban improvements carried out across the city that included the refurbishment of the medieval city, the distribution of Olympic facilities around the city in “areas of new centrality”, the re-configuration of the city mobility system by means of an outer ring road and the creation of a new neighbourhood, “Vila Olimpica”, opening the city towards the sea, among many other local interventions. Barcelona has a long standing tradition of urban transformation as a result of big events, which have regularly “regenerated” the city. As Joan
2.
Busquets, 2005.
Busquets describes,2 Barcelona has mixed a slow development – Eixample was designed in 1851 and has not been finished yet – with regular large
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FIG 1. Top: Vila Olimpica (Olympic Village) before and after its transformation. “Areas of new centrality”, location of facilities for the 1992 Olympic Games.
events of many kinds every few decades, hosted in strategic areas of the city.3 However, the Barcelona Model went a step beyond, placing design as the key engine of its transformation, and being equally known by its urban transformations and the architectures that emerged from it. The whole city was under the influence of design beyond the Olympic facilities: from art placed in public space to the interior design of commercial spaces
FIG 1
3. Exhibitions of 1888 and 1929, Eucharistic Congress in 1952, Olympic Games in 1992 and the Cultures’ Forum in 2004. He underlines the mixture of innovation and tradition in its evolution within a compact condition that has been kept along its history. This compactness is even more present nowadays, when the city has reached its geographic limits: two rivers, a mountain range and the sea, with the metropolitan city (36 municipalities and 3,2 million population) being more relevant that its administrative municipal boundaries (1 municipality and 1,6 mill population).
by architects. It was famously stated by Llatzer Moix: “There was a time in which la Falange [fascist political party] commanded, a time in which the Opus [Dei] commanded and, in Barcelona, there was a time during which architects commanded”.4 This situation was a result of the confidence and responsibility that Pascual Maragall, Mayor of Barcelona, placed on the figure of the architect
4. Journalist Llàtzer Moix describes in this book the transformations of Barcelona for the Olympic Games. Moix, 1994.
Oriol Bohigas. In addition, the Barcelona Model cannot be understood without the close relationship between the municipal government and the School of Architecture – ETSAB –, of which Bohigas had been director and
24
I. BARCELONA, WHO DO YOU GET PRETTY FOR?
whose young and talented generation of students significantly contributed to the transformation of the city.5 In parallel to Olympic facilities and public works, there was the intention to embellish the city as a whole. The campaign “Barcelona Get Pretty” took place between 1985 and 2001 and encompassed up to a
FIG 2
third of the facades in the city. The ultimate goal was to attract everyone’s attention, showing Barcelona as a welcoming city finally open up to the world. For the following two decades after 1992, the country experimented
5. Oriol Bohigas was director of ETSAB from 1977 and 1980, and since then he became the chief designer of the urban transformations of the Olympic Games. Joan Busquets, named before, was part of the “Laboratory of Urbanism” in ETSAB School of Architecture, commanded by Manuel de Solà Morales since 1968. In an academic environment, the laboratory was a research group on the city of Barcelona, as well as a test for potential interventions in the city. The story is explained by the journalist Llàtzer Moix. Ibid. In addition, one cannot dismiss the role of “Quaderns d’Arquitectura i Urbanisme”, the Catalan architects association journal, in promoting and discussing the Barcelona Model.
a continuous economic growth, having construction industry as a main economic engine and, following the “Guggenheim effect” in Bilbao, architecture was seen as a magic instrument for urban regeneration and
6.
See Moix, 2010.
7.
National Institute of Statistics.
city branding.6 However, the situation of Barcelona changed drastically in 2008, with the collapse of Lehman Brothers that ultimately led to the bursting of Spain’s real estate bubble. Construction economy, a relevant part of the local GDP, dropped drastically, leading to an unemployment rate of up to 25% in 2012.7 If in 2004 Spain built more houses than
FIG 3-5
8. Arguably this was not a result of a real demand on housing, but the real stock bubble.
Germany, France and Italy together,8 by 2010 the building permits had decreased by a ten-fold. At some point, due to both external – economic crisis – and internal factors – the enormous success of the Barcelona Model9 – the situation changed, setting off a new phase of transformation of the city where
9. Official statistics on tourism (2016): http://www.barcelonaturisme.com/uploads/ web/estadistiques/2016OTB2.pdf. Accessed on October 1, 2017.
new problems emerged, such as gentrification or the commodification of housing, leading to a lack of affordable homes. People realised they were not the benefactors of public policies towards the city anymore, and that they had been kept out of the decision making process by the local
FIG 2. Left to right: Slogans for Barcelona branding. “bar-cel-ona” (bar-sky-wave) underscores nigh life, a view towards the sky after decades of military government, and the relation with the Mediterranean. Designed by Javier Mariscal. “Barcelona, the best shop in the world.” “Barcelona, get pretty”.
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FIG 3. Housing permits 1992 to 2015. A decrease from 800.000 to less than 25.000 in the years 2007-2013 had a relevant impact in GDP. Source: el Confidencial newspaper.
FIG 4. Real-estate bubble and burst in 2008. Evolution of housing prices: market (blue) and public (green) from 1995 to 2016.
administration. As Manuel Delgado argues, the problem was not the urban changes per se, but who the ultimate benefactors of these transformations were.10 With his critique of the Barcelona Model, Delgado reveals the other side of the coin of a city that put as much effort in the morphological transformation as it lacked in social approach, and where public policies addressed corporations and business economy. Delgado recognizes that urban morphologies condition social activities that may take place within their reach, albeit they cannot totally determine them.11 Moreover, he sees architects as accomplices of the “architecturisation” and homogenization of the city,12 which transformed citizens into consumers and urban space into a space of control where spontaneity or disagreement are not allowed for the sake of a middle class exemplary citizen.13 Under these circumstances the Occupy Movement took form in Spain under the name of Indignados on 15th May 2011.14 Some of their mottos were “take the square”, “real democracy now”, or “they do not represent us”. Protestors felt alienated from the political system which, as
FIG 5. Touristic offer evolution 1990-2016.
10. Delgado argues that Barcelona has become a lying city that is not designed for its citizens but for brands and corporations, where citizen’s participation has practically disappeared, that promotes inequality, social exclusion, massive evictions and the destruction of entire neighbourhoods. He denounces the agenda to to transform Barcelona in an enterprise brand (“Barcelona” was officially registered in the Patent and Brand Register in 2010) and sold it to a society of consumers. Delgado, 2010.
11. As David Harvey theorized, there is a close relationship between the spatial urban form of the city, the symbolic qualities of that form and the social processes it enables: any policy in one of them will inevitably have an effect on the other. Harvey, 1973. Print. 12. He critiques both local architects, international ones. Ibid.
13. According to him, authorities want to achieve “spaces of quality” that offer “instructions for use” both in practical and symbolical terms and therefore urbanism and architecture become instruments for the subjugation of the social complexity of the city, “domesticating” the urban environment and homogenisation the complexity and paradoxes intrinsic to the city. Delgado. Ibid. 291-294.
they said, made decisions on their behalf but not in their interest. The movement drastically increased the social and political awareness of society, evidencing that the 2008 crisis had turned into a social and political one as well.
14. “Indignados” means “outraged”. The movement was named after Stephan Hessel book’s Indignez-vous! Published in December 2010. It was translated into English as Get Involved!
Along with the overall social discontent and politicisation of society, architects became aware of the need for a shift within their own discipline.
26
I. BARCELONA, WHO DO YOU GET PRETTY FOR?
Architects grouped as collectives, claiming their role and responsibility in city design, and implicitly acknowledging the need for abandoning the celebrated “Barcelona Model”. Partially explained by the refusal of the movement to elect leaders for the sake of a direct democracy, it was not until 2014 when Podemos, a new political party, was born, and nt until 2015 when a group of activists unexpectedly won the Barcelona City Council election. The party was named Barcelona en Comú – Barcelona in Common – with Ada Colau, a former activist in defence of housing against abusive mortgages (PAH), as figurehead.15 The new municipality had in their agenda to support citizens’ assembly and self-managed initiatives, along with promoting neighbourhood associations and their direct participation in decision making. The other major focus was the right to housing; architecture at the centre of the debate again, not in terms of design but of strategic
15. PAH: Plataforma de Afectados por la Hipoteca, founded in 2009. See Colau and Alemany, 2012.
16. Some argue that a crisis is not a moment of exception within economy, but an intrinsic part of it: “Housing crisis is a predictable, consistent outcome of a basic characteristic of capitalist spatial development” (...) “Housing crisis is not a result of the system breaking down but of the system working as it is intended.” Madden and Marcuse, 10.
management.
HOUSING Indeed, the housing crisis has become one of the main problems of the city and a major issue for Barcelona en Comú. Unemployment and job insecurity contrast with a large increase in housing prices. During the first years of the crisis,16 3.000 evictions took place every year in the city, meaning in many cases neighbours being displaced from their traditional districts. This occurs in a country that has the lowest rate of social housing of Europe (1,1%), and where the vast majority of stock is controlled by the market (80% according to Eurostat 2015).
17. Spanish Constitution of 1978. Art. 33: “ 1. The right to private property and inheritance is recognised. 2.The social function of these rights shall determine the limits of their content in accordance with the law. 3. No one may be deprived of his or her property and rights, except on justified grounds of public utility or social interest and with a proper compensation in accordance with the law.” Art.47: “All Spaniards are entitled to enjoy decent and adequate housing. The public authorities shall promote the necessary conditions and shall establish appropriate standards in order to make this right effective, regulating land use in accordance with the general interest in order to prevent speculation. The community shall participate in the benefits accruing from the urban policies of the public bodies.”
In every city, but more intensively in big cities with significant market pressure such as Barcelona, housing is debated as a right to a dignified living and to ownership, both contained in the Spanish constitution.17 As a result, housing becomes the subject matter of conflicts and disputes, resulting in a socio-political matter: operating on housing immediately has an effect on many other aspects of the city beyond the physical walls that contain houses, including seemingly unrelated aspects such as activity, ownership
18. The political significance of housing is deeply analysed by David Madden and Peter Marcuse: “the residential is political – which is to say that the shape of housing system is always the outcome of struggles between different groups and classes.” (...) “Housing inevitably raises issues about power, inequality, and justice in capitalist society.” Madden and Marcuse, 2016, 4-6.
and domesticity.18 Housing strategy is a crucial category in any city planning, as many of the qualities of a city directly depend on housing: compactness
27
FIG 6. Two similarly populated cities, Barcelona and Atlanta, are compared in terms of footprint and tube network efficiency. It could be argued that compactness is also more efficitient in terms of facilities, public space mainantance, or dependency upon private transport.
19. This does not mean that a city is sustainable if housing is compact, but it means that sprawled cities are much less efficient.
and density of housing determine to a large extent the mobility needs of the city, the management of its resources, the infrastructure and services needed, the expenses of maintaining public space, the amount of people covered by its facilities, and so on and so forth.19 Housing planning implicitly defines which other activities can take place and determines the potential mixture of uses – and consequently transport infrastructure. Even though Eixample20 is usually considered a residential district, it is a mixture of living spaces, commercial uses,21 public and private facilities, workshops and offices. Despite the endless repetition of the same block it is the most diverse neighbourhood of the city.22
FIG 6
20. Eixample is used as an example due to its morphological clarity. However, it must be borne in mind that is only one of the 10 districts that constitutes the city. 21. Commercial spaces are a clear indicator of urban hierarchy. A study on commercial distribution of Eixample can be found here: http://ajuntament.barcelona.cat/ eixample/sites/default/files/documentacio/ pcd_eixample.pdf 22.
One of the main problems of the current housing crisis is closely linked to home ownership and the lack of legal protection on housing. As the exhibition Piso Piloto23 denounced,24 the inclusion of the working class into
Rueda, 2002, 34.
23. Barcelona and MedellĂn, 2015. www.pisopiloto.org
24. Piso Piloto audiovisual material available online in their website.
a market-driven economy in Spain was a conscious act, explicitly stated by
28
I. BARCELONA, WHO DO YOU GET PRETTY FOR?
the first Minister of Housing of Spanish history in 1959, Jose Luis Arrese,
25. “Queremos convertir a los proletarios en propietarios” ose Luis Arrese, First Spanish Housing Minister, 1957. In 1959 he stated: “We will work restlessly to give a home to the humble and to make this home beautiful, happy and healthy, where man finds its own dignity. (…) When a man has no home, he takes over the street pushed by bad mood, turns subversive, sour, and violent”
with the words “we want to turn proletarians into [home] owners”. Since 25
then, Spanish population at large has been encouraged to own a house instead of the renting system predominant until then, in order to become a significant member of society.26 By encouraging the development of private housing through laws and tax deductions, housing policies played a key role in a developing country with massive migrations from the countryside to cities. This was the beginning of the promotion of an economic model
26. In the 1950s 90% of the population lived renting in Barcelona, only 15% does so nowadays. Colau and Alemany, Ibid, 22.
based on construction industry and housing as investment, which produced a quick economic growth and is still in place today. At a personal level, individual housing ownership has been promoted as a way to feel security, both during living time – to stay in and to be able to transform it – and towards the future – as an investment. Besides the territorial scale and the procurement policy, there is at least a third level open to the impact that housing has in sociological terms and which refers to domestic space. This approach has had two complementary readings: The first one refers to “the house as an architectural apparatus”, as Pier Vittorio Aureli and Maria Giudici have defined it.27 According to
27.
Aureli and Giudici, 2016, 105-129.
them, the house has turned into a familiar and oppressive space of control by becoming a place for primitive accumulation both outside the house – turning the workers into a middle-class consumers and sinking them into debt – and inside it – by the systematic exploitation of “labour of
28. It has to be noted that less than Robert’s Model House, Cerda’s Masterplan for Barcelona and Haussmann reforms of Paris are contemporary. Three different strategies to address a problem of hygiene, and arguably an idea of moral life and control over population.
love”, – waged servants and unwaged wives. The house naturalizes the economic asymmetry of society, becoming not only a spatial unit but also a social one and structuring the society into its minimum unit: the nuclear family. One of the examples shown is the Henry Roberts Model House for
FIG 7
Four Families, designed for the London Great Exhibition of 1851,28 which divided genders, ages, activities and institutionalized domestic labour. The second one is offered by Robin Evans, who also described the social effects of Robert’s Model House on a society living in London slums.29 For him, typology was as an instrument for the moralization through the division of society, affecting two different areas: between families in selfcontained territories that prevented inappropriate social relations, and
29. For Evans, authorities were as rushed to solve “moral diseases” as they were rushed to solve hygienic ones as cholera. Housing then became an instrument for educating population, as the house layout was for the first time interpreted as the “physical geography of moral conditions”. As a conclusion, Evans points out the hidden agenda of housing reform, which targeted domestic habits “instructing the poor in their own elevation” and absorbing the population from the public space to the private one in an ordered manner. Evans, 1997, 93-117.
between the members of the same family stating the authority of the parenthood. Despite this house was never built, it was greatly influential:
29
FIG 7. Plan of Model House for Four Families, Henry Roberts, 1851.
“Dwelling must incorporate criteria of structural and construction rationality, as well as easy maintenance. The generic typology is a house with a main living room, a kitchen (which can be segregated or not), 3 rooms with a surface of at least of 8sqm and a bathroom and, when possible, an additional space that can be either bathroom or storage. Typological variations of the generic house can take place occasionally as long as it is appropriately reasoned. (...) it is intended that roughly 70% of housing units consist of three rooms (70 to 75 sqm) and the vast majority of the remaining percentage be of two, allowing the ones of one or four rooms exceptionally.” 30
30. From the technical clauses of the brief for the “Public Housing Competition in the area of the Pisa Cinema in Cornellà”, Barcelona. Organized by the IMPSOL (public housing institute) in 2017. Expedient: 187/16, page 11. Available online in IMPSOL website, accessed 15 March 2017. Translated from Catalan by the author.
Although it may seem a description of Robert’s Model House, it belongs to a public housing competition in 2017 in Barcelona. The “generic typology” implicitly describes the family unit as mentioned before: standardized as three rooms, presumably one for parents and two for children, and only exceptionally considers smaller or larger families. Family is not only a social unit, but also an administrative one by means of which housing is procured. No gender perspective is mentioned. In addition, Spanish housing regulation contains the idea of a spatial hierarchy in the house, establishing social levels between the members of the household.31
FIG 8
31. Regulations compel to have at least one room of 10sqm and the rest of at least 6sqm. Nothing prevents from having all rooms of 10 sqm. However, this is rarely the case in a market driven economy in which house price is determined by the number of rooms and not by its surface. On the other hand, it does not differentiate rooms (e.g. storage or laundry, for which 6sqm is enough) from bedrooms (for which 6sqm allows only for a single bed and a small storage), equalling every room into a bedroom.
Layout variations are valued negatively by the jury of the competition. It is not surprising, then, that this produces a homogenization of housing typologies.
32
There is a set of problems that emerge from the administrative simplification of housing procurement. Most importantly, the simplification of housing typologies to a “generic typology” rejects the fact that Barcelona
32. In 1975, under a context of an early democracy and developing country where modern public housing competitions emerged in Barcelona, Oriol Bohigas already denounced the lack of possibility of experimentation in public housing, that only happened in high-cost housing and that produced a distance between the experimental attitude of architects and reality. Bohigas, “The Dwelling in the Architectural Avant-Garde”, 1975.
is formed by a complex network of social groups which form an amalgam
30
I. BARCELONA, WHO DO YOU GET PRETTY FOR?
of cultural expressions and political ideas where the homogeneity sought by public housing procurement is unrealistic. As an example, Ildefons Cerdà’s Eixample in Barcelona -mid-19th century- was designed as an equalitarian managerial system shaped into an isotropic territorial grid. However, its construction over the past 150 years has proven to be an ensemble of exceptions as they were built by a fragmented ensemble of developers and architects. In addition, streets are specific and affected not only by different architectures, but also by their surrounding neighbourhoods, commercial functions, public facilities, public transport stations, and diagonals in the orthogonal grid. These differences in a uniform pattern are both a result of and a reason for an asymmetrical city. And yet, each urban block is a chamfered square of 113,3m.
PROCUREMENT The current housing crisis in Barcelona, both quantitative and qualitative, traces its roots back to historical public housing policies.33 Traditional housing policies were based on the systematic privatization of public assets by selling public dwellings at an affordable price. This turned out to be a short-term solution to housing shortage, but a long-term problem for the city as it produced a lack of alternatives to market driven housing provision. In addition, homes were distributed according to a draw system, taking into account the current condition of the petitioners, without reconsidering if their economic situation changed over time. The lack of a public rental system linked to dweller’s income
33. Traditionally named “social housing”, a term which I find problematic since it assumes that the rest of housing is not meant to serve society. On the other hand, the word “social” seems to address a uniform group of people, while in reality there are very heterogeneous and different groups. Nowadays it is named “Housing with Official Protection” (Habitatges de Protecció Oficial). Annex 1: “The Social Role of Public Housing” traces the different meanings of “social” in Barcelona public housing policies.
FIG 8. Two of the most common typological proposals in public housing competition entries for a two or four-per-landing aggregation. (Spanish regulation compels the staircase to be in the facade or inner courtyard).
31
0
00
100m 1000 1km
High compacity urban fabric Low compacity urban fabric
Historic settlement
Public housing
FIG 9. Housing owned by public administration in 2017.
created an all-or-nothing situation with no rotation of dwellers in public housing stock. Even though it is estimated that a 15% of Barcelona was once built as public housing, only 1,1% is under public ownership nowadays.34 This
FIG 9
builds upon a policy that promotes home ownership and housing business rather than long-term housing stability, leading to an increment of 40%
34. As a reference, Vienna is usually an example of diversification of ownership, equally divided between public ownership, leasing and market driven.
35. Period 2013-2017, according to municipality. Available online. Accessed March 1, 2018. http://www.bcn.cat/ estadistica/angles/dades/timm/ipreus/ hab2mave/evo/t2mab.htm
in prices over a period of only four years, resulting in the displacement of traditional local population.35 While some argue that the solution for the issue of public housing is an increase in public investment and regulation, others argue the opposite. Both
approaches coexist in the same territory, confronting
not only developers and neighbourhood associations, but also different bodies within the public sector. In Barcelona, while the central Spanish
36. To cite a couple of laws that encouraged speculation: “Ley de Arrendamientos Urbanos” (LAU), 1985, liberalized the rental prices and unprotected rentals. “Ley del Suelo”, in 1998, liberalised the classification of the soil and decentralized control upon urban interventions.
government promotes liberal laws,36 the local municipality of Barcelona en Comú advocates for the council intervention to guarantee the right to housing, even though they do not have the competences in this matter. Housing procurement in Barcelona follows an administrative logic that fails to reflect the inherited social diversity of the city. For the sake of efficiency common areas in the building are avoided, and design during provision is split into contained areas with architecture and urbanism divided into different disciplines. As a result, procurement agents act separately: first public institutions set a masterplan defining the volumes.
FIG 10
Then, these volumes are tendered via competitions in which the architect’s role is reduced to filling in the given areas with a set number of standard typologies.37
37. Timing it is no less important, only allowing 6 months to prepare drawings before construction. From the technical clauses of the competition brief, Ibid, 11.
By preventing the dialogue between planners acting on the different stages, as well as between the designers of the singular buildings, the result is an over-fragmented juxtaposition of buildings rather than a coherent whole. On the contrary, if the urban fabric and the domestic space were to be designed in parallel, incorporating new agents such as dwellers to the dialogue, a new set of possibilities would appear regarding the complexity of the social spectrum and the existence of interstitial spaces and their use. This level of complexity would certainly extend procurement timing but would also potentially achieve a much better result in terms of spatial qualities of shared areas and public spaces, and in the activities they enable.
33
FIG 10. Typical competition brief in Barcelona: architects design dwellings in a pre-stablished volume, where alternatives only offer minor variations. Architecture and Urban Planning are dissociated and realised by different teams.
As a response to the housing crisis, Barcelona en Comú has opted for increasing the public housing stock of the city,38 as well as diversifying the strategies to solve affordable housing shortage.39 In their view, local communities40 appear as key players in the defence of housing as a right, thus encouraging cooperative housing and the strengthening of social bonds through the inclusion of social groups and associations in the decision making protocols of the city.41
WHY LIVE TOGETHER However, as Richard Sennett argues, the city has become a place for silence and homogenization to avoid contact and conflict.42 According to the author, the purpose of the city has changed from being a place where “strangers are likely to meet” into a place governed by the “evil of impersonality”, and produced a situation of contemporary isolation
34
38. In June 2017 the author discussed the need for a large public housing stock with Josep Bohigas, chief architect of Barcelona Regional – strategic public planning agency – and Anna Vergès, head of the Barcelona Observatory of Housing.
39. The author discussed the “Housing Plan 2016-2020” with Iván Gallardo, Housing Management Department of the council, on June 28, 2017. See: www.habitatge.barcelona 40. Georg Simmel defined the dichotomy between the individual and his position within a social framework and the nature of a person belonging to several social groups at the same time. Simmel, “How is Society Possible?”, 1908, 14-19. For that reason “community” might be not precise wording to name a group of people. More importantly, what exists is a sense of community that makes citizens act towards others, or think upon themselves, in a certain way. 41. Barcelona council encouraging cooperative housing with the two first experiences under construction (laBorda, by laCol architects and Princesa, by Sostre Civic).
42. People were gradually afraid of strangers, and wanted to protect themselves from the unknown, producing fake and nonsincere relationships. Sennett, 1977.
I. BARCELONA, WHO DO YOU GET PRETTY FOR?
which has brought forward the cult of individualism and the self.43 It also 43. Richard Sennett explains the moment of shift in which silence became the rule in public space. Silence meant order, and the abolition of social interaction as a way to keep order and make people afraid of involuntary disclosing their feelings: public sphere was a threat. Sennett, 1977,122.
produced the withdraw of people from daily political life, which is what Barcelona en Comú tries to confront through the implication of citizens in political processes. On the contrary, he thinks the city as a place to learn by facing the unknown, strangers,44 and where strong social relations and communities are created thanks to the urban form that allows this to happen. The relevant issue is how public policies – and design – articulate or segregate these communities, what role should social groups have in cities in relation to other social groups, and what is the role of architects as mediators between different interests. If Sennett is right and communities are a social network of relationships that are highly beneficial for their members, it is then
FIG 11-12
44. Sennett’s definition to stranger resembles Simmel’s: “The stranger will thus not be considered here in the usual sense of the term, as the wanderer who comes today and goes tomorrow, but rather as the man who comes today and stays tomorrow” (…) “he is fixed within a certain spatial circle” (…) “his position within it is fundamentally affected by the fact that he does not belong in it initially and that he brings qualities into it that are not, and cannot be, indigenous to it. Simmel, Georg, “The Stranger”,1908, 143.
convenient to consider why and under which conditions would people agree to living together and whether a “togetherness” in living can actually be mandatory. The analysis of these possibilities can provide support to the proposed strategy. Two different groups of benefits can be discerned. First, benefits which do not include the performance of a direct action but derive from the fact of living together. These can include the creation of affective networks,
45. David Harvey defends the necessity of coexistence of alternative modes of economic integration besides market exchange, such as reciprocity and redistributive integration (proposed terms by Karl Polanyi). Harvey, , 1973, 207-210, 282-284.
psychological security and the potential ease of social organization to express collective claims. There is also the potential optimization of resources and spaces, such as sharing certain areas and uses of the building, or the promotion of alternative economic integration models.45
FIG 11. Social activities within a building. Hertzbergers Drie Hoven retirement home.
FIG 12. Social activities as a result of proximity in public space. Aart Klein, “The Swans Walk”, Antwerpen, Belgium, 1949.
35
Secondly, a more obvious group of benefits which require a certain occupation or performance by the dweller. Beyond historical or ideological causes, such as military defence, religious purposes or squatting, relevant activities gathering people under the same roof have been observed to be economic, productive and/or domestic labour. Economic and productive purposes are one of the most relevant reasons to live together, as many people consider the reason of exchange as the foundation of the urban experience, the market being its primary architectural form. Related to that, there is production, of which Charles Fourier’s Phalanstère or Andre Godin Familistère would be paradigmatic.46
FIG 13
Although western cities nowadays have shifted from industrial to tertiary economies, the idea of living and working together is very present. Eixample is an example of coexistence of living and producing, as many flats have been turned into office spaces or other uses such as medical practices. In
46. Jean-Baptiste Andre Godin started his Familistère de Guise, France, in 1859. The main concept was that a whole cooperative industrial community of 1200 workers would live and work together. His idea was to improve the poor conditions of living of the working class in cities, by offering them better housing which included common services such as cooperative shops, nursery, school, restaurant, cafe and a theatre, and installations, such as heating and ventilating systems.
addition, Eixample’s ground floors are dedicated to either commercial spaces or workshops. Many projects in several countries have recently retaken the
FIG 14
exploration of living on top of productive spaces. Student housing is a contemporary variation of this approach, with the intention of clustering people which perform similarly in order to provide a constructive educational environment. In this case, the main “productive areas” would be the library and study rooms. Another example is the so called “co-workings” in a start-up culture,
FIG 15
FIG 13. Familistère a Guise, Godín.
36
I. BARCELONA, WHO DO YOU GET PRETTY FOR?
FIG 14. House as a productive space. Dwelling sits on top of working areas. Hutten und Palaste, Agora Wohnen Berlin, 2017
FIG 15. Co-working space.
where emergent and small offices share a larger common space. This condition has to be framed on top of the ongoing demystification of the office as the working space per excellence: working is not an opposition to leisure or labour in the domestic environment anymore; limits between living and producing in the house have been blurred.47 This situation is
47. The bedroom is a productive space as much as a reproductive one. As an example, often the bed mixes the uses of a bed (sleeping), a table (working or responding emails) and a sofa (watching a movie).
most evident under Spanish working conditions in a moment of crisis, when many people have been forced to become a freelancer or to set a room of their house as an office. Along with production, another relevant reason for living together was the optimization of spaces and energy dedicated to domestic labour. These achievements, often linked to feminist movements, have been studied by Dolores Hayden’s in The Grand Domestic Revolution.48 Hayden frames it under the traditional oppression of women by house labour and men, and
48.
Hayden, 1982.
49.
Ibid. 3.
traces the struggle of the “material feminists”: those feminist movements which focused on “economic and spatial issues as the basis of material life”,49 having a direct translation to an architectural typology.
37
She identifies as the main problems the unpaid exploitation of female labour and their isolation at home, which prevented their organization. In order to revert this situation, initiatives presented by Hayden could have different approaches, ranging from an improvement of the conditions to carry out domestic tasks to more ambitious proposals that targeted a collectivisation of domestic labour, either shared or professionalised. It is
FIG 16
remarkable that when observed today, each of the three main domestic spaces that Hayden describes that were at some point collectivised – kitchen, laundries and kindergarten – had a different development. While collective kitchens have not worked as large a strategy as they were intended – food delivery services were originally not a business but a form of collectivisation of the kitchen –, laundries are one of the most common shared areas in buildings, if any; and kindergartens have been turned into a public service provided by the government. On the other side of cooperation there is the large household which contains at least two hierarchical family structures, one serving the other,
FIG 17
very common in Barcelona until mid-20th Century.50 These hierarchies in the house become explicit when it comes to eating, by the fact of sharing the table or waiting for someone to finish eating, considered one of the 50. A paradigmatic case of that is the Catasus House, by Jose Antonio Coderch in Sitges, in 1956. ). The house has a clear structure divided into three areas, which also divide the courtyard accordingly: a day area, a night area with the bedrooms in which the parent’s one occupies the privileged position and has a particular bathroom, and the service areas for the servants with an autonomous house, with much lower standards, linked to the kitchen.
FIG 16. From common activities to common areas: cooperative housekeeping.
38
I. BARCELONA, WHO DO YOU GET PRETTY FOR?
FIG 17. House with three areas: living (blue), sleeping family (chre), servants sleeping and working space (brown). Same scheme applied to a countryside house (left: Catasús House, J.A. Coderch, 1956, Sitges) and to a urban block (right: Bach Dwellings, J.A.Coderch, 1961, Barcelona).
main social acts but also embedded with a strong symbolic significance. Sharing a table is one of the most common social activities, and has a major importance as part of our rituals – e.g. in ceremonies – or as an unmistakable welcoming gesture towards a stranger. Eating together is one of the first activities to share either in productive environments – factories, offices, co-working, universities, and so on – or in informal situations. The previous examples offer voluntary conditions of cooperation as a result of productive and domestic activities. However, it is relevant to analyse whether this condition of “togetherness” can be an imposition. There have been cases when a government has forced a form of compulsory cooperation as part of a strategic policy. One of the most significant ones were the Dom-Kommunas, designed in the USSR where domestic labour was a form of exploitation, and the apartment was seen as the materialization of the ideas of the ruling class through the imposition of a bourgeois social unit: the family. They attempted to dissolve the structure of the family by reducing the private space to a room per adult – a standardised unit for everyone –, sharing the rest of the domestic
FIG 18
areas between a large group of people. This would allow to centralise and professionalise the services, which would be paid by the state. However, the rigidity on the imposition of a housing and social structure made its objectives unattainable.
39
This issue was recognised by Moisei Ginzburg when he designed Narkomfin, completed in 1932. Like Dom-Kommunas, Narkomfin had common kitchens and kindergarten, as well as common areas to “socialise” such as gymnasium, roof gardens and a social club.51 But unlike DomKommunas, Narkomfin had different apartment types, ranging from single units to fully collectivised ones, recognising diverse household compositions and, more interestingly, the need of transitional units for a gradual adaptation to a new form of household composition52– and therefore social structure. Ginzburg recognised the impossibility of forcing a certain way of
FIG 19
52. According to Anatole Klopp, out of the five house types four were conventional although they met different kinds of requirements. However, F type, had a particular importance, as Ginzburg himself noted: “The F type unit is important as a step along the road toward a communal form of housing in keeping with the social processes of differentiation of the family and the increased use of collective facilities” Kopp, 1971, 135.
live and the need for a time to adapt to a new condition:
“We consider that one of the important points that must be taken into account in building new apartments is the dialectics of human development. We can no longer compel the occupants of a particular building to live collectively, as we have attempted to do in the past, generally with negative results. We must provide for the possibility of gradual, natural transition to communal utilization of different areas. (...) We considered it absolutely necessary to incorporate certain features that would stimulate the transition to a socially superior mode of life, stimulate but not dictate.” 53
51. Le Corbusier´s Unité d’Habitatión was strongly inspired by Narkomfin and also was named a “social condenser”. However, Le Corbusier did not target a change in the structure of the family.
FIG 20
53. Ginzburg, Moses, “Shlushali: Problemy Tipizatsii Zhil’ya R.S.F.S.R,” S.A. No.1 (1929), p5. Extracted from Kopp, Ibid. 141.
FIG 20. Zuyev Club, Moscow. Ilia Golosov, 1928. “Social Club in operation (...) the socialized as opposed to the sociable”. Robin Evans, “Figures, Doors and Passages”, 1978.
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I. BARCELONA, WHO DO YOU GET PRETTY FOR?
fig 18. Dom-kommuna. The Building Comittee of the Economic Soviet RSFSR (stroikom). M.Barshch & V.Vladimirov, Moscow, 1929 Left: fifth floor plan. Right: dwelling cubicle for one person (1.60 x 375).
FIG 19. Narkomfin F-type appartments for 4th, 5th and 6th floors, and section.
41
DESIGN I
Masterplan and procurement
The city of Barcelona needs a significant shift in its housing procurement policies by increasing public housing stock, and actions to prevent further commodification. This raises the debate of whether these new public stock should be located in the centre of the city or its periphery, as well as if it should be a large scale intervention or a series of smaller operations. The proposal seeks to introduce small interventions in separate locations around the city, so that many neighbourhoods benefit from it. In addition, they offer the possibility of working as a network would reinforce the presence of community-self managed cooperatives in the city.
PROCUREMENT: Procurement is set as a public competition to design a non-profit public housing unit that mixes public, cooperative and emergency housing. The three agents in charge of these existing housing models (public administration,
cooperatives
and
emergency
shelter
foundations
respectively) are to be included in the planning of the competition.
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I. BARCELONA, WHO DO YOU GET PRETTY FOR?
0
100m 1000
RECONVERSION OLD INDUSTRIAL AREAS 41. Sagrera 42. 22@ 43. Marina del Prat Vermell HIGHWAYS COVERAGE (RONDES)
RELLOCATION AND RECONVERSION ACTIVE INDUSTRIAL AREAS 31. Besòs 32. Industrial port 33. Zona Franca 34. Bellvitge
EMPTY PLOTS SMALL SACLE 21. Multiple intervention (>250)
EMPTY PLOTS LARGE SCALE (SINGLE INTERVENTION) 11. Besòs riverfront 12. Diagonal Mar 13. Vall d’Hebrón 14. Port extension 15. Hospitalet nord
STUDY OF POTENTIAL AREAS FOR A LARGE HOUSING MASTERPLAN
43
PROPERTY AND MANAGEMENT: Built under a leasing agreement on public land. The administration keeps ownership and direct management on public housing and leases housing to
54. Some emergency shelters in Barcelona are managed by independent foundations, which are supported by public administration. Habitat 3 is an example: www. habitat3.cat
cooperatives and foundations that manage emergency shelters,54 allowing a high degree of autonomy. There is an initial agreement on property and management, which would create a cooperative to manage the shared areas and a consumers cooperative to allow substantial economic savings. There are many options
FIG 21
on legal agreements. Maintenance and cleaning tasks are professionalised, by either dwellers or externals. Tasks are paid through income provided either by surplus energy generated on site or rental of work spaces.
COMPETITION PHASES: Competition in two stages. During the first stage, emergency shelter foundations and cooperatives submit a managerial plan and concept design for their requested dwellings and shared areas. The winning proposals will then join public administration, foundations and cooperatives to set the brief for phase two, which includes an agreement on common areas, their size and location, and a summary of the user’s needs. If appropriate, the local administration may include a public facility in the building. The second phase operates upon the guidelines set by the first stage and calls for architects to take part in a participatory design process that includes all the different agents involved. After the winning proposals have been awarded and subsequently built, the role of the architects continues, as further modifications to the building may be required. The benefits of living in a clustered and shared environment are noticeable in many ways. Common areas can include productive, domestic labour and leisure spaces, as well as sharing the service areas such as technical rooms, electric panels, storage rooms, or car-sharing parking. It would be an opportunity to promote consumer cooperatives and economic exchanges for domestic activities.55 However, shifting towards this condition
55. Without being over-deterministic, here are some examples of activities that would include social interaction and encouraging of local economy: library and homework help for primary and secondary students, by university students in the afternoon; handyman for maintenance services; elderly care and help with e.g. shopping, doctors or pharmacy visits, etc.; children care and babysitting when parents are e.g. shopping; cooking for events, e.g. birthdays; take away meals; language exchange or instruments lessons; laundry; financial or legal advisor; bike fixing workshop; workshops and offices for small and emergent business; car sharing and rental of cars with or without driver...
needs a gradual evolution over time, and dwellers need to be able to decide how much they want to share.
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I. BARCELONA, WHO DO YOU GET PRETTY FOR?
Some design issues may derive from this first brief. Firstly, the need to quantify the standards for the competition brief and to determine what is the importance of the domestic space in relation to other areas of the building. Secondly, the role of the different social groups in the building regarding the governance of the building itself, and of the activities that take place there. In addition, it is necessary to investigate the extent to which these communities have an impact on housing typology.
FIG 21. Options for legal agreements for cooperative housing (in Spain still a new model). “Legal Forms for Collective Custom Build Projects and Co-housing Projects�
45
CHAPTER 2
Inside Out
The campaign “Barcelona Get Pretty� beautified the city by focusing on its facades rather than on its public space, as a result of the acknowledgement by the city council that the character of a city resides in its buildings. However, in the eyes of the new administration in 2015, this was necessary but not enough, since it would only be an aesthetic benefit for pedestrians but it was not doing much towards improving living conditions. Instead, they offered renovation grants for interior reforms in residential buildings, such as a improving energetic performance, adaptations to meet user’s specific needs or the installation of a lift.1
1. Detailed information: http://habitatge. barcelona/en/housing-services/renovateyour-home/renovation-grants/home-interiors. Accessed March 1, 2018.
With this new campaign, the city council intended to tackle issues inside the house, stating that domestic space had been underestimated by the previous administration and acknowledging that urban space does not begin on the outer face of the facade but inside the house. In other words, an improvement in the quality of domestic space results in an upgrade of the quality of the urban space of the city, even though the transformation is invisible from the street. Ultimately, these domestic transformations contribute to improve the historical housing standards of the city.
STANDARDS As soon as public housing is provided, it needs to be quantified and
47
FIG 1. Public housing has traditionally address the minium housing. Housing satisfaction as a result of life expectations.
its levels of quality outlined. Standards are the levels of quality under which housing is designed and built at a certain moment, and normally vary over
FIG 1
time and country. Implicit in standards, there is an inversely proportional relationship between the number of housing units and the budget dedicated to each of them. Since public housing has pursued the maximization of the stock, discussions on standards have most often addressed the minimum housing size. Minimal living space has been a recurrent topic among architects. In 1929, CIAM II raised the question under the title “The Minimum Dwelling”, resulting in the proposal for a duplex apartment unit. As this 2
FIG 2
model was quite rigid, other further proposals examined the standardization
2. The duplex that was discussed has become the paradigmatic typology of a duplex: entrance, toilet, kitchen and living room in one floor and two bedrooms and a bathroom in the other one.
of minimum housing not in relation to the house as a whole, but regarding its spatial or building components. Examples range from the standardisation of spaces regarding household size, such as Walter Gropius in 1931 in
FIG 3
his minimal expandable houses for Hirsch Kufper & Messinwerke to the standardization of components such as the capsule proposals of Kisho Kurokawa’s Nagakin Hotel in 1971 or Moshe Safdie in Montreal in 1967.
FIG 4
In Barcelona, Ricardo Bofill took Ildefons Cerdà’s minimum individual space 3×3×3m as the starting point for the development of his “City in the Space” between 1968 and 1975, culminating in the Walden 7.
FIG 5
Another relevant approach was the so called “incremental housing”, which acknowledged the changing needs of the household over time allowing
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II. INSIDE OUT
FIG 2. Duplex proposed by CIAM II Existenzminimum in 1929.
FIG 4. Nakagin Capsule Tower under construction (1972) by Kisho Kurokawa.
FIG 3. Minimum expandable houses for the Hirsch Kufper Messinwerke, Walter Gropius, 1931.
FIG 5. City in Space, Studies for Moratalaz housing project. This unbuilt project was part of the development of the “City in the Space”. Ricardo Bofill Taller d’Arquitectura.
49
dwellers to expand their house.3 3. Even though it recognizes the changing needs of the household, it is based on two premises: that the household will always be at its minimum when inhabiting the house for the first time – presumably by a young couple –, and that housing needs will always increment but never shrink. Any of these situations can be assumed as a norm.
Who public housing targets as dweller is a crucial question. In Barcelona, housing procurement matches the administrative unit, the social structure and the spatial layout through the 70sqm flat for the nuclear family. Family is a cultural construct that has taken many forms,4 as described by Roberts’ Model House. Architecture played a major role
4.
in the naturalisation of the nuclear family as a hierarchical social structure that was accountable for its members, becoming a policing organisation.5
Rybczynski, 1986.
5. According to Jacques Donzelot, the family has not only become the smallest social organization, but also was “a tutelary complex” of social relations, which mediated both between the individuals of the family through a system of hierarchies and between the individual and the state. Donzelot, 1979.
At this point, one should reflect on the relevance and feasibility of moving forward with the nuclear family model, or addressing a larger social structure, given the contemporary situation where the relation of subjects with society has shifted dramatically. Zygmunt Bauman offers a meaningful reading of this condition
6.
Bauman, 1999.
of modernity, in which society is losing its identity and is facing a series of 7. It is not a coincidence that social emancipatory and feminist movements have targeted the family as a social structure that needed to be dissolved. Hayden’s studies on material feminists divided economic and social organizations into two: those who maintain the nuclear household but offer a community and centralized services and those who triggered the traditional family organization and proposed the living as a “big family”. Hayden, Dolores. Ibid.
deep changes regarding its values, relations and internal structure, creating a situation of uncertainty and instability at all levels.6 Detached from past and future, the individual has ultimately become free in the liquid modernity of instant gratification: free to choose even their own identity that, unlike before, is not culturally, historically or socially given, but built by individuals seeking differentiation from each other.
8. Sometimes emerge voluntary, by personal circumstances of even encouraged by the administration.
This condition of liquidity has a direct impact in architecture. Nuclear families are becoming less and less common, and the modern family operates within the disparity of familial configurations and the confrontation of individual and family interests.7 New household structures are emerging,
9. Usually a building’s lifetime is considered a 100 years. However, examples like the medieval city of Barcelona reveals that life expectancy of buildings can be much longer.
becoming ever more complex and one of the most unpredictable aspects of future society.8 Thus, targeting any particular household when designing housing is a rather limiting strategy, as any household structure will become outdated within the lifetime of a building.9 In addition, the perception of domestic space and its problems also change constantly.
10
If the individual is liquid, households are uncertain and housing should last for a given period of time, it is a requisite to be able to adapt housing in a way that it can meet the evolving needs of a liquid society. This strategy should accept that the physical structure of the building will remain permanent over time.11 Despite this, subtle changes, and therefore
FIG 6-7
10. The annual Ikea report on housing habits shows how interests, conditions and problems in the house change year by year. For more information visit: www.lifeathome. ikea.com. Accessed March 1, 2018. 11. Moving architecture has proved to be a limiting strategy of adaptation: no capsule has ever been added or subtracted of Kurokawa’s Tokyo Hotel neither of Safdie’s Habitat in Montreal. This inability of buildings to suffer major changes suggests the need for a different strategy.
fast and cheap, could produce a significant transformation of the domestic
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space and its internal relations. And, as a given household might not only grow but also shrink, housing should also be able to also do so. The proposed housing model addresses a non-nuclear, nonhierarchical and non-permanent household, allowing its members an increased level of autonomy. It acknowledges the subject described by Bauman: an individual with unpredictable and liquefied social bonds, but for whom a community is indispensable. For that to happen, it is necessary to reconsider the cell through which housing is designed. Since this decision entails a design process, the question that follows is: should the cell be bigger or smaller than the household? Should it be bigger or smaller than the house?
DOMESTIC PROJECT The strategy proposed in this study does not seek to target a specific household, but a larger social group – the building – and the personal space: the room whose inhabitant is the liquid subject. With that approach, the house is not considered the minimum unit but the first shared space, which includes a proportional set of services and common areas. Defining the size of the room is crucial to determine which
FIG 6. Difficulty of household predictions made in the 1960s for an “adaptable house”. “Seven Stages in a Family Cycle”, as part of the design for “The Adaptable House”, British Ministry of Housing and Local Government, 1962.
FIG 7. The unpredictability of the household forming new structures even with strangers, due to personal conditions, council initiative or economic need. Top left: youth and parents, “8 out of 10 under 30 still live with their parents”. Top right: Council promotes elderly for living together to avoid solitude. Bottom left: Back from the asylum to the house: 300.000 families in Spain live with the pension of an elderly, with growing tend (x3 in 4 years). Bottom right: Forced to share flat to pay the rent.
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FIG 8. Activity as room standard. Left: minimum room size according to current regulation in Spain. Right: increment of space allows many other uses that strictly sleeping and storage.
activities can take place within its limits.12 Rooms of different sizes may lead to a hierarchical structure within the house, as well as to a specialization of rooms by function. Since the use of the rooms is as unpredictable as
FIG 8
12. Architects have offered many disparate proposals for minimum room sizes: while Le Corbusier’s in his Cite Radiuse was 14sqm, Miliutin’s ranged from 7 to 9 sqm, just to mention a couple of them. Spanish minimum room size is 6sqm, which does not allow for a double bed but just for a single one and a minimum storage.
the household itself, traditional hierarchical relations (such as day-night, service-served areas or parents-children) are not considered appropriate. The proposed rooms are equivalent in size for the purpose of not to predetermine the hierarchical relations in the household and to offer a higher degree of adaptability. In doing so, their use is not predetermined by design but decided by the dwellers and changeable over time.
HALL
HALLIn Barcelona, not exhaustingDOOR the limits(LANDING) ofDOOR permitted(LANDING) building volume
CORRIDOR CORRIDOR
allowed by planning regulations entails a lack of efficiency. In order to fulfil the allowed volume and allow houses to increase at the same time, the proposal aims to allow housing units to become elastic elements within a fixed building massing, meaning the internal limits of the building become adjustable over time, and therefore, houses are able to expand and shrink
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according to the changing needs of the household. Rooms that become unnecessary or redundant can either join an adjacent unit or become semiautonomous spaces with independent access, useful in case of temporary household changes, as productive spaces or extensions. This strategy would allow not only to regulate the size of houses, but also to split one into two if necessary. The changing boundary between two houses – a room that passes from one to the other – is a process that would require an agreement by both parties involved, facilitated by a common ownership scheme. According to this configuration, doors become the architectural element that allows the house to be elastic with minimum transformation and economic impact. Opening or closing a doorway – say, by substituting
FIG 9
it with a blind prefabricated panel – is the simplest way to allow the house to adapt its size through the selective connection of spaces. Thus, a door operates as more than a threshold between spaces: it represents the potential multiplicity of connections and relations through which flexibility
13. Georg Simmel sees the door as an element opposed to the bridge which connects paths. According to him, the door separates the uniform space, but allows to “stepping out this limitation [the enclosed space] into freedom”. Simmel, “Bridge and Door”, (1908). On the other hand, Georges Perec defines the door as a mechanism to stop and separate spaces, and confronts it with his personal experience of a doorless Frank Lloyd Wright house. Perec, 1997.
and adaptability of use can be achieved. The characteristics of the door – size, opening mechanism, height, material, etc. – play a determining role in the definition of the domestic space: from generous enfilades to narrow thresholds which offer a higher degree of privacy.13
FIG 10
In addition, the deliberate and planned redundancy of doors would allow to multiply the possibilities for navigating the house, enabling a certain degree of autonomy for its members (e.g. elderly, grown offspring
FIG 9. Void in the wall, to be filed by a door or by a board, easily changeable over time
Size of the void determines the potential relations between both spaces.
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FIG 10. Types of doors in Neufert’s Architect’s Data.
in their thirties, colleagues sharing a flat, etc.), or of use (working space in the house). This is a typical situation in households formed by two families, owners and service, that used two different entrances. Recovering a double entrance, not as a way to force a hierarchy, would involve many advantages regarding the autonomy of uses and activities. The proposed strategy seeks to obtain a degree of adaptability in two levels, which correspond to two different living tempos. While the previously described refers to the size of the house, the second one refers to a much more immediate present: if rooms are a neutral space with their use not conditioned by size or position inside the house, furniture and objects become enablers of activity that allow – or not – a direct use of the space, and also offer the possibility for social relations around them in a certain manner due to their size – e.g. the width of a table – or relative position –e.g. two nearby armchairs. At the same time, furniture and objects determine boundaries of use within the house and, more importantly, they characterize the spaces in the house: many times rooms are named
14. This quote has been attributed to Walter Benjamin and John Soane.
after the objects or furniture they contain. If “inhabiting means to leave footprints”,14 objects are the physical indication of actions in the domestic FIG 11
space. These objects are also expressions of the self, who is projected onto them by means of usage, culture and ownership.15 In a shared household, the common space becomes inhabited by objects that act as mediators between ownership and use; there is an emotional feeling of
FIG 12-15
15. Witold Rybcynksi traces the history of the evolution of comfort and domesticity sice the Middle Ages until the end of the XXth Century. According to him, the evolution of furniture is linked to the idea of comfort, which is accumulative and evolutive. Rybczynski, 1986.
attachment both towards the house and the objects it contains. Objects become extensions of the subject that owns them, who, in return, is shaped
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FIG 11. 13 Rue del Percebe, a very popular comic in Spain published by Ediciones B from 1961 to 1968. It narrates the life and misfortunes of the neighbours in a building through a section. On the left side, the drawing that Francisco IbĂĄĂąez used as template, which could be associated with what is taught in Spanish schools of architecture. On the contrary, the right image shows a much more complex situation as a result of the inhabited building.
Four interpretations of the relation subject - house - object through photography. FIG 12. Top left: frontal depiction of a room without human presence. FIG 13. Top right: tiny space, photography as a plan. FIG 14. Bottom left: a typical hotel room with an unexpected furniture organization. FIG 15. Bottom right: portraits of Chinese families with everything they own in front of their house. The inhabitant sits at the end, behind his possessions. Objects are shown detached from the domestic context, confronted with the urban space.
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FIG 16. Luxury coffee machine, sophistication and representation of status. The kitchen as a representative space. From a “bohemian modern style from a san francisco girl”
FIG 17. Gio Ponti, Casa in via Dezza, Milan, 1957. Day and night facades.
FIG 18. Yves Lion, Domus Demain, 1984
by them. Aware of that, Georges Perec made a fabulous portrait of the dwellers of a building in Life, a User’s Manual,16 not through the description
16. Originally published in french as La Vie mode d’emploi, in 1978.
of their physical characteristics or their preferences or habits, but through endless lists of objects that they kept in the storage room of the basement. In addition, objects evidence the importance that we give to certain spaces of the house. A very clear example is the kitchen, a room that offers many clues regarding the cultural character of objects and their link to actions and habits. A few decades ago it was a service space of the house kept away from visitors, but nowadays it has become one of the most
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representative spaces of the house, in full view and a status symbol, where cooking has become a social and collective activity. As a consequence, objects have reflected this shift, for example with the commercialization of coffee machines as a representation of status.
FIG 16
Some architects have been deeply conscious of the cultural significance of objects and how they become an expression of the dweller. Architects such as Gio Ponti proposed, back in the 1950s, the facade as a place for storage. While the image of the building during the day would stay still, at night the backlighting of the shelves would expose these objects to the outside. The silhouette of a book, vase or picture frame would be
FIG 17
contrasted with the urban scale at large. Perec’s objects leave their place of storage and become the facade, the representative element of the building, in control of the user. In 1984, Yves Lion went one step further, and proposed to give the facade the thickness of a room, transforming it into an “active band” that could host not only objects but programmatic activities of the house, exposing service rooms that had traditionally been
FIG 18
placed in the core of the house. This is a clear opposition to the idea of the facade as a fixed element that represents the dweller, and which would be embellished through “Barcelona Get Pretty” sort of campaigns. The interior has lost its domestic and introverted character and, as Barcelona en Comú acknowledges, it can have a direct impact in the urban sphere in terms of representation,
FIG 19
identity and well-being of inhabitants.
FIG 19. Arquitectos de Cabecera. Two views of an elevation. Left: the domestic life of the house is projected towards the street. Right: facade elements without the building as supporting structure.
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DESIGN II
Halls, Thresholds and Passages Typological studies on friction in the domestic relations
“If anything is described by an architectural plan, it is the nature of human relationships, since the elements whose trace it records – walls, doors, windows and stairs – are employed first to divide and then selectively to re-unite inhabited space”. Robin Evans, “Figures, Doors and Passages”, 1978.
This section presents a set of short exercises developed to test the previous hypotheses, regarding the potentials of the elastic house, the setting of the room as the minimum standardized cell, the adaptability of the house through the redundancy of doors and the appropriation of the space through objects. These exercises interpret Robin Evan’s reading of friction in the domestic space through the emphasis of the circulatory spaces of the house, which have a direct impact on privacy, hierarchy and autonomy in the use of space, and therefore of the relationship of its members.17 Three different relations are analysed: halls, a room with many connections; thresholds, a room-to-room scheme; and passages, a pure circulatory space. Although domestic spaces are usually formed by a combination of them,
17. The framework is set by an article by Robin Evans entitled “Figures, Doors and Passages”, where he discusses the architectural plan through the way it can enhance or prevent certain relationships and attitudes. He developed this argument through the comparison of two British typologies that were linked to particular architecture elements: the Victorian House (doors) and in the XIXth Century English architecture (passages). The figures (inhabitants) behaved differently in each of them as both the plan and their expected behaviour were shaped by the same principles. In both cases, the architecture layout responded certain considerations of morality, carnal contact and privacy. In other words, friction.
here all three have been picked individually as the leitmotivs of the design.
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BASED ON THE ROOM HALLS
CONCEPT
HALLS
DOORS THRESHOLDS
PASSAGES PASSAGES
GEOMETRY linear - progressive
LINEAL / PROGRESSIVE
VERTICAL
DIAGONAL
vertical
diagonal
PLACEMENT
NUCLEAR
nuclear
MULTIPLE
multiple
ATTRIBUTE
THICK
thick
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THRESHOLD 11 RUE LARREY. MARCEL DUCHAMP. 1927
HALL OF MAISON
LA ROCHE, LE CORBUSIER, 1923
CORRIDOR IN ‘THE SHINING’, STANLEY KUBRICK, 1980
A large horizontal hall links all the rooms. The hall becomes the central shared space of the house where the activities take place sequentially. Four rooms per side, as well as their corresponding bathrooms, can belong to either one house or the adjacent one. The aggregation is produced through the party wall, generating a lineal and rigid system. BASED ON THE ROOM HALLS
CEPT
AL
PASSAGES
HALLS: HORIZONTAL HOUSE TYPOLOGY
PROGRESSIVE
L
DOORS
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Maximum house size: Minimum house size: Room size: Aggregation:
8 rooms and 4 bathrooms + hall. 236m2 1 room and 1 bathroom + hall. 56m2 12m2 two per landing, party wall
HALLS: HORIZONTAL AGGREGATION
0
10
63
BASED ON THE ROOM
NCEPT
The vertical hall is a void around which the house revolves. For that to happen, this space is shared between four houses. The access is in the ground floor and all houses spiral HALLS DOORS PASSAGES around the vertical hall, although it would be easy to imagine a lift in the hall as well. A secondary spiral staircase allows the connection between volumes. The main hall is the core of the house, which can be transited but not inhabited. The main staircase is where the core can be linked or enclosed to other rooms.
PROGRESSIVE
HALLS: VERTICAL HOUSE TYPOLOGY
L
AL
R
64
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Maximum house size: Minimum house size: Room size: Aggregation:
5 rooms. 135m2 3 rooms. 95m2 19m2 four per block
HALLS: VERTICAL AGGREGATION
0
10
65
BASED ON THE ROOM HALLS
T
DOORS
PASSAGES
SSIVE
A diagonal common space serves all the rooms of the house, giving a clear directionality to the space. Although a diagonal hall can take place in a block building, its natural location would be in a slope. This space is fragmented through a topography. The rooms are to be shared with the house above or underneath.
HALLS: DIAGONAL HOUSE TYPOLOGY
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Maximum house size: Minimum house size: Room size: Aggregation:
common area + 6 rooms. 114m2 common area + 1 room. 58m2 11 m2 slope
HALLS: DIAGONAL AGGREGATION
0
10
67
BASED ON THE ROOM HALLS
CEPT
DOORS
PASSAGES
typology A
typology B
PROGRESSIVE
L
All the rooms of the house are linked to a central hall. The circulation revolves around the kitchen, which becomes the core of the house. Two rooms are inseparable from the house, while other four are to be shared with three other houses. A room can be accessed from the exterior for autonomous use. The aggregation into a mat-building is produced by only two typologies, in a four-per-landing structure with a high degree of adaptability to a urban context, hence generating exceptions in the perimeter.
AL
HALLS: NUCLEAR HOUSE TYPOLOGY
R
E
68
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Maximum house size: Minimum house size: Room size: Aggregation:
7 rooms. 133m2 hall + bathroom + 1 room. 56m2 16m2 four per landing
HALLS: NUCLEAR AGGREGATION
0
10
69
BASED ON THEscheme ROOM A room-to-room sets a clear hierarchy in the house: only the extremes are free from circulation movements. The doors are connected through an asymmetrical ‘enfilade’. HALLS
The access and service areas can be placed in any of the internal rooms. Due to the high depth of the house, internal courtyards are necessary. In order to keep the constraint of room-to-room and the enfilade, it has not been possible to include an exchangeable room. While aggregating, the corner typologies shift the axis into a non-perpendicular enfilade.
DOORS
PASSAGES
THRESHOLDS: PROGRESSIVE (A) HOUSE TYPOLOGY
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Maximum house size: Minimum house size: Room size: Aggregation:
6 rooms. 105m2 6 rooms. 105m2 10 to 20m2 two per landing
THRESHOLDS: PROGRESSIVE (A) AGGREGATION
0
10
71
BASED ON THE ROOM If the previous exercise considers the courtyards outside of the room and the access in the centre of the plan, this one proposes the opposite. The cell has always the same size but HALLS
the room is defined by the shape of the courtyard. The access is set in the extreme of the house, leading to a beginning-and-end situation. In order to maintain the room-to-room situation with only two doors per room, the ‘adaptable room’ could only take place at the end of the house. When aggregating, the block is limited to three-room width, not to DOORS PASSAGES exceed the surface.
THRESHOLDS: PROGRESSIVE (B) HOUSE TYPOLOGY
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Maximum house size: Minimum house size: Room size: Aggregation:
5 rooms. 125m2 2 rooms. 50m2 50m2 cell, 25m2 room central courtyard
THRESHOLDS: PROGRESSIVE (B) AGGREGATION
0
10
73
ALLS
BASED ON THE ROOM DOORS
PASSAGES
A single nuclear door has to be placed in the centre of the house. By being a single element that can only have one position at a time, its activation has an effect in all the rooms of the house, which has implications on the degree of privacy. The house is centripetal by definition. The aggregation is a result of the overlap of the typical house that redefines its boundaries.
THRESHOLDS: NUCLEAR HOUSE TYPOLOGY
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Maximum house size: Minimum house size: Room size: Aggregation:
5 rooms. 90m2 2 rooms. 25m2 11 to 18m2 party wall
THRESHOLDS: NUCLEAR AGGREGATION
0
10
75
BASED ON THE ROOM HALLS
DOORS
PASSAGES
Room-to-room situation in which each room has three doors. It multiplies the potential paths within the house, having an impact on privacy. This multiple doors situation is equivalent to the multiple hall one. A double door span has been proposed between rooms allowing three kind of relationships: big connection, small one or null. While aggregating, the staircase is placed in the junction, having four doors per landing two of which can belong to the same house. The system could grow endlessly on paper, having service rooms and accesses regularly.
THRESHOLDS: MULTIPLE HOUSE TYPOLOGY
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Maximum house size: Minimum house size: Room size: Aggregation:
unlimited 2 rooms + 1 bathroom . 35m2 15m2 four doors per landing
THRESHOLDS: MULTIPLE AGGREGATION
0
10
77
BASED ON THE ROOM HALLS
DOORS
PASSAGES
The thick threshold condition is explored here through the irruption of a drastic element inside the house, which rejects the existing perimeter to impose its own geometry. This thickness is structure, furniture, service areas and threshold at the same time. The circulation sets a hierarchy between the rooms. Four typologies unite into a bigger unit, that can be repeated as a mat-building.
THRESHOLDS: THICK HOUSE TYPOLOGY
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Maximum house size: Minimum house size: Room size: Aggregation:
6 rooms. 110m2 6 rooms. 110m2 10 to 25 m2 four per landing
THRESHOLDS: THICK AGGREGATION
0
10
79
BASED ON THE ROOM DOORS
PASSAGES
This exercise can exemplify both single and multiple passages. Three lineal passages organize the movement in the house: public exterior, domestic and private exterior. The exterior corridor enables as many entrances as needed. For this case, kitchen and common area have a larger size, therefore setting a hierarchy in the house. The equivalent of service space at the other side of the corridor corresponds to each room, keeping the proportion if the house increases. The house could grow endlessly and regularly incorporating service areas in proportion with the rooms.
PASSAGES: LINEAR HOUSE TYPOLOGY
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Maximum house size: Minimum house size: Room size: Aggregation:
unlimited room + kitchen modules. 37m2 14m2 multiple corridors
PASSAGES: LINEAR AGGREGATION
0
10
81
ON THE ROOM
DOORS
PASSAGES
The lift becomes a vertical passage that generates an aggregation strategy by piling. Each room has two lifts which allow for a double circulation: one to access the house and another one to move in the domestic space. The domestic lift has the size of a person, as a door may do. Not all the lifts may be operative at all rooms. The lift offers the possibility of having a disconnected room in the house or as many rooms as needed. Structure walls vary in different floors to allow room differences.
PASSAGES: VERTICAL HOUSE TYPOLOGY
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Maximum house size: Minimum house size: Room size: Aggregation:
unlimited 1 room + kitchen + bathroom. 75m2 15 to 30m2 vertical
PASSAGES: VERTICAL AGGREGATION
0
10
83
SED ON THE ROOM DOORS
PASSAGES
This situation can be imagined as a house placed in different rooftops, or piled as towers. The diagonal passage adopts the form of a staircase, making the threshold between the rooms spatially complex. The rooms then become then isolated elements. A considerable part of the house surface is dedicated to movement. Adaptability has to be achieved through the installation of a staircase. The access is produced through a staircase with a door per landing.
PASSAGES: DIAGONAL HOUSE TYPOLOGY
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Maximum house size: Minimum house size: Room size: Aggregation:
unlimited 2 rooms. 35m2 14m2 one per landing in helical staircase
PASSAGES: DIAGONAL AGGREGATION
0
10
85
The previous exercises approach the domestic space from a guided circulation scheme, be this a hall, threshold or passage. This one, instead, addresses an opposite situation; under these circumstances, the displacement in the house is not driven. “A field condition would be any formal or spatial matrix capable of unifying the elements while respecting the identity of each. Field configurations are loosely bounded characterised by porosity and local interconnectivity.” Stan Allen, From Object to Field, 1997. The cell is defined here as a wooden volume that encloses the bed and storage as the most private space. By reducing the size of the room, the shared space of the house is maximised. Then, the cell is able to appropriate part of the common space, in itself or together with some other one, forming clusters within the house. Because the room is a light assembled element, the house can be reconfigured in case of necessity. The cell can also be dissembled and transported easily. The inhabitant becomes a nomad who carries his room to a new house.
Enclosed vs Open Situation
Left: Charles-Étienne Briseaux. ‘Architecture Moderne ou L’art de bien bair pour totes sortes de personnes’, 1728 . The plate of Briseaux shows a room divided in four areas: antichambre, chambre, cabinet and alcove. While the cabinet and the alcove are linked to certain specific uses –beds and storage–, chambre and antichambre are two spaces with different attributes –light, size, and disposition– open to any activity. Right: Beds Lithographs. Published by Larousse, France, 1897 the bed as a tri-dimensional object, not as a soft surface, offers the possibility of changing the conditions of enclosure and privacy.
Sequences inside the Room sound-noise-privacy gradients
Relationships appropriable and shared areas
ROOM INTO A ROOM, THE FIELD CONDITION
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Bearing Cell prefabricated permanent concrete
Inhabited Cell assembled transportable wooden
Three independent rooms in a common layout
One room independent + two rooms share a space
Components plug-in movable
Three rooms common space
maximazing
the
ROOM INTO A ROOM, THE FIELD CONDITION
87
0
5
ROOM INTO A ROOM, THE FIELD CONDITION PLAN
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ROOM INTO A ROOM, THE FIELD CONDITION AXONOMETRY
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FROM SOCIAL TO TYPOLOGICAL DIAGRAMS “Housing is an activity, not a place” John Turner
When it comes to housing procurement, there is the ineluctable need to standardise. However, since current standards are limiting in terms of adaptability and response to current household conditions, a redefinition of the framework of these standards is proposed: what is standardised and who is the target. The proposal reconsiders the “generic house” which is procured nowadays in Barcelona – three-bedroom flat for the nuclear family–, which is a homogeneous response to a much complex reality. In order to address numerous possibilities, the notion of standards must be redefined in order not to predetermine social hierarchies in the house, adapt to unpredictable and changing household compositions and enable different uses by allowing the autonomy of spaces and members. In order to achieve a degree of adaptability to different and unpredictable household compositions, the design approach shifts from the nuclear house to a system of rooms with common areas and services. Versatility in the house is achieved by two means: first, by being able to redefine the internal borders of the building. This means that houses may grow or shrink if required by the simple operation of substituting doors. Then, by defining equivalent rooms in a non-hierarchical disposition and accounting objects as activity enablers and what characterises the space. For that to happen, the minimum room size of 6sqm in Spain is clearly insufficient. On the contrary, sizes between 10sqm to 15sqm allow many more possibilities, while rooms bigger than that significantly increase the surface of the house. Regarding privacy, the amount and position of the entrance to the house is crucial in order to define hierarchy and privacy relations. Hall, then threshold, and finally corridor, set an incremental relation from shared to private condition. This has to be thought about critically when designing,
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II. INSIDE OUT
Halls HALLS
CONCEPT
Thresholds THRESHOLDS
Passages PASSAGES
GEOMETRY
linear - progressive
LINEAL / PROGRESSIVE
VERTICAL
DIAGONAL
vertical
diagonal
PLACEMENT
NUCLEAR
MULTIPLE
nuclear
multiple
ATTRIBUTE
THICK
thick
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as it can be a situation to pursue or to prevent. Defining the position of kitchens and bathrooms conditions the privacy of rooms and circulations within the house, as they are (almost) immobile elements. If the number of rooms varies, it is important that the service areas do as well. The same spatial relations that mediate between members of the households – hall, thresholds and passages – can be applied to the different households of the building – halls, landings or corridors. These affect to a certain extent the access to the housing units and the potential entry to an “autonomous room”. This proposition contains many potentialities regarding the use and adaptability of the house. However, it also comprises some foreseeable issues, such as the need of negotiation and agreements between dwellers for the redefinition of the limits of the house and the use of the autonomous room. This can also refer to all the activities that can take place in the common areas of the building that are shared between the three housing models.
Access through hall, landing and corridor
HALL
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DOOR (LANDING)
CORRIDOR
II. INSIDE OUT
HALLS LINEAR
DIAGONAL
NUCLEAR
LINEAR
MULTIPLE
NUCLEAR
2 CELLS
3 CELLS
4 CELLS
THRESHOLDS 2 CELLS
3 CELLS
4 CELLS
PASSAGES ENTRANCE
CENTRE
2 CELLS
3 CELLS
4 CELLS
PERIMETER
2 CELLS
3 CELLS
4 CELLS
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CHAPTER 3
From Object to Subject
“then the question of what kind of city we want cannot be divorced from the question of what kind of people we want to be, what kinds of social relations we seek, what relations to nature we cherish, what style of life we desire, what aesthetic values we hold”. David Harvey, 2012, 4
As a result of the socio-political shift derived from a situation of crisis that observed its turning point during the occupation of public squares by the “Indignados”15M Occupy Movement in 2011, many grassroots and assembly movements claimed for a more direct involvement in politics. Even though many movements existed before, 15M made their social claims explicit and, more importantly, it encouraged self-managed associations. This had a direct impact on the discipline of architecture and urban design as well, having consequences in housing procurement by local governments but also in its professional practice – with the emergence of cooperatives of architects such as laCol, la Baula, Celobert or the collective Volta – and in academia –the case of the Barcelona School of Architecture
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(ETSAB) with “Arquitectos de Cabecera”. It represented a major shift in the strong tradition of urbanism in Barcelona; due to Ildefons Cerdà’s masterplan, the city has been exemplary of a territorial development and due to the “Barcelona Model” it became an example of a city where architecture, as a standing discipline, had the ability to solve any urban problem. Nonetheless, as Delgado explains, this was far from being true and the “Barcelona Model” approach involved many contradictions.1 The traditional lack of a social sciences driven approach to the city derives
1. As has been discussed in chapter I, the anthropologist Manuel Delgado has been very critical with the way city transformations have deliberately avoided to consider the social impact of their agendas. By doing so, the privatization and homogenization of public space, the refrain of disobedience and the transformation of Barcelona into a consumable were implemented in a much more straightforward manner through the direct – and many times violent – transformation of the urban space. Delgado, 2010.
from the way architecture is understood and taught in academia. As mentioned above, in the case of Barcelona it is crucial to understand the close relationship between the teaching of architecture and the city that results from it.2 These new groups became aware of the need for a structural change in the profession, regarding internal organisation of practices, the targeted client and the design process. On the one hand, their organisational structure changed from the traditional hierarchical practice with few principals to a more horizontal composition formed by several members. On the other, they addressed a different client, as local communities and neighbourhood associations became their new interlocutors, directing
2. ETSAB has been historically the place where Barcelona has been thought out. Mainly exemplified through Ignasi de Solà Morales’ “Laboratory of Urbanism” or Oriol Bohigas, first as director of ETSAB and later as chief architect of the city. In the vast majority of cases, student’s briefs are located in the city, which allows a continuous opportunity for testing. The School of Architecture of Barcelona, embedded into a Polytechnic University and a technicaldriven plan of studies, has traditionally not considered the social fabric of the city when addressing urban planning.
architecture projects to the particularities of the neighbourhood and its social specificities.
DAILY POLITICS With their approach, these new collectives of architects recognise the valuable knowledge that locals have of their own neighbourhood – which
3. As Simmel did, half a century before Lefebvre stressed the mental and social form of the city. However, he adds nuances to Simmel’s concept, not relating it to the city but to “the urban”. Lefebvre, 1968, 104.
means accepting the limitations of traditional architecture as a discipline – and the will to “work along with” instead of “work for”. It also implies the acknowledgement that both social and urban fabric have the same value. In Henri Lefebvre´s words, it is the differentiation between the “city” – the physical form – and the “urban” – the social intangible form constituted by
4. Lefebvre identifies three agents in charge of urbanism. 1- men of good will linked to philosophy such as architects and writers; 2- administration, the scientific urbanism; and 3- market driven agents such as developers who seek profit. Lefebvre, ibid., 45-47.
a network of relations.3 Lefebvre also stressed the political problems of urbanism, criticising how those in charge are incapable of understanding what they cannot represent by graphical means.4 Thus, architecture and urban design are constrained disciplines5 due to their lack of tools to address the complexity
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5. Antonio Miranda, professor at ETSAM and director of the Department of Design 1990-94, sees in the split of architecture and urbanism into two different disciplines a deliberated mechanism to unarm them in front of “power” and “plunder systems”. Miranda, Antonio. “There are no Benches in Wall Street” in Delgado, 2011, 9-17.
III. FROM OBJECT TO SUBJECT
FIG 1. “Barcelona, Theme Park” el Pais Newspaper. Les Rambles in Barcelona in July, consumed as a touristic product. Les Rambles in July.
of the city both in their physical and urban spheres. “The city”, said Lefebvre, is dead. It has been transformed into an instrument for cultural consumption, where the ruins of ancient cities are consumed as a touristic product by visitors trying to placate their nostalgic feeling towards the city. Lefebvre could perfectly have written this statement in reference to contemporary Barcelona. However, he continues, “the urban” persists. As a response, he famously proclaimed the “right to the city”, under which
FIG 1
6. The geographer David Harvey interpreted Lefebvre’s and underscored the right of transforming the city as a collective right from the point of view of geography. Lefebvre and Harvey, both Marxist’s academics, saw in the process of urbanization an evidence of class-struggle in which the city became an instrument of capital accumulation where power and wealth were spatiality shaped. “The freedom to make and remake ourselves and our cities is, I want to argue, one of the most precious yet most neglected of our human rights.” Harvey, 2012, 4.
citizens have the right not only to use the city, but to the appropriation of it, to participate in its transformation, to individualisation in a socialisation process, and finally to habitat and inhabitation.6 The process by which members of a social group could actively participate in a process of transformation of the city like the one described by Lefebvre was theorized by Hannah Arendt as “Action”: “the only activity that goes on directly between men without the intermediary of things or matter” (...) “the activity of social and political life”.7 Its condition is “plurality”. Even though her book was written five decades ago, her words recovered all their meaning during the Indignados 15M movement in 2011, when people massively claimed their right to participate regularly in political life. Living socially together8 inevitably involves a degree of cooperation and, at best, an implication in decision-making – Arendt’s “action”.
7. Arendt defines three kind of activities that form “Vita Activa”, which is one of the basic conditions of humans. Firstly, “Labour”, which are the activities that ensure the survival of man, and correspond to the biological process of human body and do not generate material lasting objects. Secondly, “Work”, which is unnecessary for survival, unnatural to man and provides an artificial world of things which are likely to be accumulated. Finally, “Action”, which for Arendt is the condition for political life, and therefore it needs the condition of others to be performed as a social activity. It is based on plurality and the assumption that survival is guaranteed. Arendt, 1958, 22.
8. Together is used here as a social adjective, not only as a sense of proximity. The relation of social and physical distance between houses was explored by Dolores Hayden, who saw in the single-family sprawled housing of the US a mechanism to isolate the woman in their house and avoid cooperation in domestic labour. Hayden, 1981.
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Yet, the matter concerns how and to what degree this cooperation takes place, and whether people find it beneficial. Beyond having “work” and “labour” needs covered - and having the necessary time for it - a sense of responsibility and care for one’s own city is required, a selfless will that derives from a feeling of belonging and identity. As David Madden and
9. “[Housing is] a universal necessity of life, in some ways an extension of the human body. Without it, participation in most of social, political, and economic life is impossible. Housing is more than shelter; it can provide personal safety and ontological security. While the domestic environment can be the site of oppression and injustice, it also has the potential to serve as a confirmation of one’s agency, cultural identity, individuality, and creative powers.” Madden and Marcuse, 2016, 12.
Peter Marcuse explain, this feeling is not linked to home ownership but to the ontological security produced by a sense of stability.9 As they argue, under the current condition of crisis, housing has been commodified, thus becoming a mechanism for oppression and therefore personal insecurity. Rephrasing the argument, housing is able to provide personal security if there is the certainty of being in control of the inhabited space, enhanced by the safety provided by a social support network and the possibility – and responsibility – to make decisions regarding it. However, this “action” takes place during their leisure time. As the architect Lali Daví explains,10 there are many different situations regarding the participation of the user in the design of cooperative housing: from
FIG 2
10. Lali Daví is an architect by ETSAB, and member of the architects’ cooperative “laCol”. Interviewed by the author on October 2, 2017.
people who are very much involved in the process to others who are either not interested or simply do not have time for it. Nonetheless, Barcelona has no tradition of dwellers’ involvement
FIG 2. Assembly in Can Batlló, Barcelona. LaCol cooperative of architects have been part of the transformation of the industrial complex and further initiatives, like la Borda housing cooperative.
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III. FROM OBJECT TO SUBJECT
in the decision-making process, neither during design nor occupancy. Public administration has historically had a paternalistic approach by encouraging the withdrawal of dwellers from decision-making and responsibility regarding the building.
11
In addition, the sales of public
housing stock avoided the need for maintainance tasks. On the contrary, a radically different situation is taking place in housing cooperatives, a model currently being implemented in Barcelona. Under this scheme, 12
architects meet the dwellers before the first stage of design, in order to answer to their particular needs and requisites. Once the project is built, the cooperative is not dissolved but continues to work during the leasing process. By doing so, building and inhabitants are bound not only by a legal agreement, but also by the commitment and responsibility on decision making and management of the building. In addition, they feel legitimated to appropriate the common areas, both in terms of decision-making and use.
11. Housing is designed by the administration and professional practices, and once the house is delivered, if it is sold – in the case of public housing – the owner takes full rights on it, and if it is rented – either public or emergency – the dweller is not allowed to do any modification.
12. Due to historical political context, Spain has no tradition of cooperative housing. Although there were some cases in the 1970s, the cooperative housing movements arising now are seen as something new.
13. The Uses of Disorder was written two years after May 1968 when he was 27. Unlike the books he has written afterwards, this book explicitly shows his interest in anarchism as a form of self-management at the expense of a powerful and forceful state: “There would be no policing, nor any other form of central control, of schooling, zoning, renewal, or city activities that could be performed through common community action or, even more importantly, though direct, nonviolent conflict in the city itself” Sennett, 1970, 115.
Cooperative housing explores a new relation between agents, raising the question of what should be the role of dwellers in decision-making, both during procurement and while the building is inhabited. It also implies the need to reconsider the role of the architect during these stages. From the paternalistic single decision to the self-managed model in which dwellers participate actively, there is a whole range of possibilities in which architects have acted as mediators or enablers.
14. He deepens into this argument in Together, 2012, where he distinguishes between dialectic conversations – towards a synthesis of points of view – and dialogic – where there may be no agreements –. According to him, dialogic processes are more relevant as they are based on the quality of understanding someone else’s ideas without convincing them, and therefore are based on empathy.
Richard Sennett has analysed what he calls the “politics of cooperation”. In his first book,13 he states that the citizen of the contemporary city is voluntarily hidden –he talks about slavery– behind the power of institutions and the leader of the community. Freeing the individual from these authorities (not eliminating, but transforming them) as well as avoiding the pre-planned city would provide the opportunity for the city to develop according to different needs. He argues that a degree of disorder would not create an environment of chaos and violence, but would instead make people learn how to deal with conflict in a mature society by making their own decisions and responsibilities.14 Traditionally, the administration of Barcelona has tried to avoid every kind of conflict through the imposition of strict regulations and prohibitions to the use of public space.15 However, disputes arise in the city
15. “Public space is conceived as the realization of an ideological value, a place in which diverse abstract categories such as democracy, citizenship, coexistence, civility, consensus and other contemporary political superstitions materialize, proscenium in which one would wish to see an orderly mass of free and equal beings, handsome, clean and happy, immaculate beings who use that space to come and go to work or to consume and who, in their spare time, stroll carelessly through a paradise of courtesy, as if they were the figures of a colossal spot advertising. Of course, in that territory any undesirable presence is quickly exorcised and it is up to expelling or punishing any human being who is not capable of showing middle class manners.” (...). “Barcelona is an example of how, if you are caught unaware, that dream of a desconflictivized urban space, swarming with an army of volunteers eager to collaborate, collapses as soon as the external signs of a society whose raw material are inequality and failure appear.” Delgado, 2010, 275. Translation by the author.
as a result of the co-existence of different people expressing their differing
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ideas, interests, opinions and wills,16 and can certainly be a driving force for a collective transformation of the city.17
16. Barcelona, as an industrial city, had a very strong history of conflict linked to working class struggles, without which the city cannot be understood neither socially nor morphologically. George Orwell famously describes it in his book Homage to Catalonia, in which he reports his experience in the Spanish civil war in Barcelona during the years 1936-37. All Worker’s Unions were forbidden during the military dictatorship 1939-1975.
While the local government has promoted the isolation of the inhabitants and the non-dependency as a feeling of security, collective organisation – such as Plataforma de Afectados por la Hipoteca – PAHor Platform for People Affected by Mortgages of which Ada Colau was a major activist–, played a decisive role in the defence of collective claims
17. Far from seeing conflict as a negative form of social interaction, Georg Simmel saw in it a “sociologically positive character” by acknowledging that conflict is an inherent part of urban life. Simmel, Georg, “Conflict” in Simmel, 2015, 41-140. This argument is put forward by Manuel Castells, who saw in conflict not only an existing form of sociation, but a driving force for change. “The basic dimension in urban change is the conflictive debate between social classes and historical actors over the meaning of urban, the significance of spatial forms in the social structure, and the content, hierarchy, and destiny of cities in relationship to the entire social structure. A city (and each type of city) is what a historical society decides the city (and each city) will be.” Therefore “the definition of urban meaning will be a process of conflict, domination, and resistance to domination, directly linked to the dynamics of social struggle and not to the reproductive spatial expression of a unified culture”. Castells, 1983, 302.
against the legislation and will of the administration. In the present situation of social crisis, and facing the growing threat of gentrification, many neighbourhoods in Barcelona find in their “local identity” and selforganisation a useful tool to prevent undesired transformations.18 Direct and binding involvement of citizens in decision-making renders participation an instrument to deal with conflict: “What should emerge in city life is the occurrence of social relations, and especially relations involving social conflict, through face-to-face encounters. For experiencing the friction of differences and conflicts makes men personally aware of the milieu around their own lives; the need is for men to recognize conflicts, not to try to purify them away in a solidarity myth, in order to survive”.19 One might argue that this could only work in a situation where people have the mechanisms of control and decision. That is fairly straightforward
FIG 3
in a small group; however, the challenge for many cities is how to provide the tools to make direct participation plausible at a larger scale. When Barcelona en Comú won the elections in 2015, they made available a set of tools for direct participation, such as the strengthening of the ten district offices of the city and a website.20 However, direct participation in daily politics, especially in regard to public – shared – urban spaces, can get simplified into a legitimation of a public policy that has been decided beforehand, a situation in which consultations have no real effect and are reduced to minor decisions. Manuel Delgado argues that mediation mechanisms provided by the
18. The spokesman of the Tenant’s Union of Barcelona, a recently created platform against the “rent abuses”, explicitly stated that “a strong social structure is what can avoid gentrification”.News in channel 3/24, 8 February 2018. 19.
Sennett, 1970, 114.
administration are not only a way in which the “dominant class” hides the contradictions keeping them in power, but also a way by which the
20. www.decidim.barcelona
“dominated class” is convinced of the neutrality of the political system and
21.
Delgado, 2011, 9-17.
consents to governmental practices.21 By these means, the “dominated” not only accept the given contradictions, but also actively participate in their own domination.22
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Another problematic, Delgado points out, is that in participatory processes not all options are equally valid once the speaker is identified by some detail, and then “socially classified”.23 Some of these social categories, he argues, can give more power to a debater, while some others could be disabling due to a bad reputation. As a result, equality in communication becomes a chimera. Jeremy Till also reflects upon this problematic in relation to decision making for participative processes in architecture.24 He bases his critique on Carole Paterman’s labels of participation: “pseudoparticipation”, as a persuasive process to accept pre-made decisions, “full participation”, where individuals have equal power in decision making,
22. He is also very critical with the so called “civism”. In Barcelona, the “Civility Ordinance” was approved in 2006. It was very controversial due to, amongst other actions, the fining of leisure activities, such as playing ball games in the streets, a traditional activity for children. He argues that the education on civism – which he calls indoctrination – is a way to enforce the power of the dominant classes in public space, in which the dissidence or improper appropriation of a public space is automatically seen as “incivic”, and therefore against the morals of the “good citizenship coexistence”. Delgado, 2011, Print.
and “partial-participation”, when one party has the final decision.25 As Delgado, Till recognises that even though full participation would be ideal, it is not realistic. He in return suggests the term “transformativeparticipation”, which acknowledges the imbalances of power and knowledge in a process with different interests and degrees of involvement.
23.
Delgado, 2011, 64.
24. “The Negotiation of Hope”, in Jones, Petrescu and Till, 2009, 23-41.
He conveniently underscores the way in which the recognition of these imbalances “transforms the expectations and future of the participants.”26 Expectations is a key concept, as many participants of these processes become sceptical when told they have full power to decide. Till’s proposed
25.
Pateman, 2000.
26.
Pateman, Ibid, 27
concept of participation should allow for the design process to be more
FIG 3. Arnstein, “Ladder of citizen participation”.
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transparent, with a stronger communication line between the expert and the non-expert, and a “reformulation of expert knowledge and the way in
27.
Paterman, Ibid, 31.
which it may be enacted”27, as well as the communication tools between experts and users. Consequently, as Till suggests, the discipline of architecture may have to include a set of tools and mechanisms in order to address the asymmetrical knowledge of all the parts confronted during a design process. I would argue that this should also have an impact on the way architecture is being taught in schools by the inclusion of a set of instruments that addresses the social fabric of the city and how to dialogue with it. In addition, and following Lefebvres’s argument, architects should drastically reconsider their tools to represent the city and their proposals for it. As previously suggested, architects have the opportunity to become mediators in the conflicts that may arise between the different interests in city transformation. While on the one hand they need to assume their limitations, on the other they should acknowledge the responsibility their decisions (and silences) carry during the course of urban transformation processes. A typical example of a participative design process is Frei Otto’s ÖkoHaus in Berlin (1983-88). It consisted of three concretes structures of
FIG 4
three floors height each. These new levels, of 6 or 12m height, offered the
FIG 4. Frei Otto’s ÖkoHaus, in Berlin, (1983-88). Plans, discussion on model and building.
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minimum infrastructure and new grounds for the dwellers to design their 18 houses, which were then built by 9 other architects, allowing for a high degree of freedom. Architects set the rules, after which they stepped back 28. The process is described in detail by Brigitte Fleck. See Fleck, 2013.
and became coordinators of the project. Another example is Alvaro Siza´s Quinta da Malagueira (Evora,
FIG 5-6
Portugal, 1973-77), a mixture of cooperative ownership and social renting after 17 years of collaboration between the municipality of Evora and diverse housing cooperatives. Unlike Otto’s example, the problem was to include dwellers in decision making given the vast number of houses (1.200
29. Alvaro Siza’s words refearing to Quinta da Malagueira project. From Duarte, Jose Pinto “Grammar of Houses” in Fleck, 2013, 145-170.
units). The response of the architect was to project a single typology that supported a large number of variations designed in collaboration with the cooperatives.28 Decisions and variations were discussed collectively: “Who is the author? Is it me, who designed the initial houses, is it the researcher
30. Ibid.
who developed the grammar, or is it the designer who used the grammar to draw the house?”29 . However, when during the process he was asked to become a mere
31. Siza, in an assembly meeting when building for Quinta do Malagueira. Siza, “Imagine What’s Evident” in Fleck, 2013, 145170.
technician, he responded that he “considered the architect’s silence or demission unacceptable. That is, a specific competence cannot be eclipsed by the collective whole, since it constitutes an irreplaceable presence. The set of professional skills, with all the knowledge it entails, is a capital to which one cannot renounce”.30 This difficult equilibrium between the self-standing architect and the “mere technician with no opinion” is the challenge of the aforementioned young collectives in Barcelona. As Siza recognised, “the type of participation in the project is dependent on social conflicts and cultural specificities”.31 Besides addressing the participation of certain social groups, it is pertinent to reflect upon the impact of the pre-existence of a specific community in a housing project, both referring to the negotiation of shared areas and their impact on typology. In this case, the wording “social-group” or “community” is referred to in a critical manner, not as a
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Alvaro Siza´s Quinta da Malagueira, Evora (Portugal) 1973-77.
There are two typologies in L shape with the courtyard either in the front or in the back, both in plots of 12 by 8m. In each of these cases, the number of rooms can vary from one to five, providing variation both in plan and in the volume which, while giving an image of unity, broke the monotony of the face in masterplan made of repetitive units. A ‘grammar’ was developed for the project, a set of rules – never explicitly written - that could allow for the typological transformation of the first house designed by Siza. FIG 5. Top: plans of the variations on the house. FIG 6. Bottom: derivative variations on the house departing from a single typology.
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shelter of security and passivity;32 it is only meaningful if there is an active participation of its members in daily political life, through which they feel empowered but also responsible for their decision making, for the space they live in and for the people they share it with.
BOUNDARIES OF THE COMMON Social groups living together require spaces where they can meet,
32. Sennett is very critical of the way in which community groups can become not a tool for self-management but of immaturity by the “myth of dignity through communal solidarity”. He frames this point in the “community slavery” because of insecurity, in which the citizen becomes a voluntary slave by hiding in a coherent and uniform community with strong leaders. Sennett, 1970, 44-45.
which will become spaces of physical and social negotiation, and many times symbolic. As defined by Georg Simmel, cities create specific psychological conditions for their inhabitants.33 These conditions have an effect on how people behave, regarding both the physical space in which they move, and the social relationships that may potentially take place.34 The existence of these spaces is of utmost importance, not only because they encourage social relations, as Herman Hertzberger has broadly studied,35 but also because the lack of them precludes any kind of community-support environment and makes organisation for collective claims unlikely, as Dolores Hayden described.36 Jan Gehl identified three categories of activities people are likely
33. Georg Simmel in “The Metropolis and Mental Life” described the psychological effects of the metropolis, which he differentiated between emotional and intellectual. He pointed out that the metropolis was it reduced qualitative values to quantitative problems, which ultimately created a sense of strangeness and repulsion and the overstimulation of the senses. At the same time, the metropolis produced a framework for people to gather, and more freedom to the individuals in a “inexhaustible richness of meaning in the development of the mental life.” Simmel,“The Metropolis and Mental Life”, 1903.
to perform in public spaces,37 and classified them in relation to their neediness: “necessary” – will happen anyway, such as mobility of shopping –, “optional”, linked to the quality of urban space, if there is a wish and the place encourages so – such as walking around, sitting or sunbathing, and finally there are “social” activities, which depend on the presence of others in the same space, are spontaneous and cannot be forced. They promote the knowledge of “the others” and, one could argue, they are the ones that generate a sense of belonging and care for a place – both the “city” and the
34. Simmel studied these relations between physical space, the psychological conditions it produced, and the social activities it encouraged. He defines “sociation” as “the form (realized in innumerably different ways) in which individuals grow together into a unity and within which their interest are realized. Simmel, “The Problem of Sociology”, 1908.
“urban” – independently of the sense of ownership and individual right over property. Indeed, in some cooperative models the members own a percentage of the building, but not a specific area – a flat. When ownership is abstracted, a shift from individual to a collective understanding occurs, leading to the organic emergence of shared areas. Shared areas act as a buffer zone between the so called “public” and “private” spaces. The terms public and private are administrative and legal categories of rights, but many times do not carry social or spatial
35. Hertzberger, grounded Simmel’s ideas to specific places and forms in architecture. According to him, “belonging” and “identification” play a crucial role on the socialization in a space, as otherwise it emerges a feeling of alienation. Hertzberger, 1991. 36.
Hayden, 1981.
37.
Gehl, 1980, 11-14.
divisions. When referring to the latter, they are not opposite terms as in
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a legal framework but overlapping situations that depend on our cultural 38. “The private and the public are not basic anthropological constants either, but rather historically established concepts subject to social and technological change.” (...) “The history of privacy and publicness is also a history of conflicting notions of what people should and should not do in a society.”. Maak, 2015, 160-161.
understanding of what public and private means.38 Hence, it is necessary to talk about degrees of share and degrees of privacy. These gradations within the buffer zone are concentric circles that
FIG 7
involve different social groups, privacy, the capacity to decide collectively upon them and spaces and services that expand the domestic space. In that scheme, the room becomes the personal space, which does not have all the services needed for living. The house is the first shared space, both physically and socially, with the household. The second circle belongs to the three different models – public housing, emergency shelter and cooperative,
39. As explained in the design of the first chapter, the suitability, size and location of these areas should be decided collectively.
as explained in the first chapter–, which have their own shared living room, exterior spaces and in the case of the cooperative, meeting areas, dining room and a kitchen. The third circle includes areas that can be shared by anyone in the building, such as a library and study rooms, game rooms, a large kitchen and a living room, leisure areas, storage spaces and technical rooms.39 In addition, there is another set of spaces that could potentially be used either by dwellers or externals – such as co-working areas, workshops and car-sharing parking – and if necessary facilities or commercial areas opened to the city. The existence of common areas implies a negotiation between dwellers regarding which activities can take place, as well as management
Street New square Public facility or commercial space Common productive areas co-working and offices Common areas Cooperative housing household Cooperative shared areas Public housing households Emergency shelter households Emergency housing shared areas FIG 7. Diagram of concentric circles of privacy and share.
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and maintenance of the space. Although the activity in itself may be spontaneous, it is framed by a previous negotiation of the use of the space, responding to specific ideas and rules, sometimes written and other times resulting of a social agreement decided collectively in assemblies. In parallel to agreements, the use of shared areas depends on the activity being carried on, the morphology of the space and its symbolic character. Activity. Social activities cannot be compulsory, but are deliberate and dependent upon other activities, as Gehl defined. For this reason,
40. Something that Alison and Peter Smithson were aware of when designing a mountain in the centre of the Robin hood Gardens, encouraging children to play inclusive games.
common spaces might work better if they are located in accessible parts of the building, or in zones with a privileged condition that invites people to use them. Some activities prevent others from happening, for example ball games.40 Boundary and limit. Activities need landmarks that allow the use of the space, as an empty plot will hardly invite people to perform any activity. There is a need for friction with objects that encourages activities to take place. These boundaries and landmarks exist both to define the
41. Simmel, Georg, “The Socioloy of Space”, 1908.
space and to create internal limits. The Boundaries of the space are not only physical, but as Simmel described, “a boundary is a psychological and sociological event”.41 In addition, he points out the importance of immobile assets that fix these boundaries and allow unstable conditions and interactions. It would be easy to adapt these reflections referring to internal boundaries or landmarks redefining the limits of the space, thus creating new dynamic relationships. A clear example of this condition are Aldo van Eyck playgrounds in the post-war Amsterdam, small objects redefined the area of an empty plot and allowed its use in a playful way. Furthermore, if these objects have the quality of being movable – such as shared furniture in the common areas of the building -, the ways in which these spaces could be constantly redefined multiply. Furniture and objects are cultural symbols that allow a collective use and a temporary appropriation of the space, stimulating the performance of shared activities. Symbolic. Finally, these spaces acquire a symbolic meaning. Amos Rapoport studied the environment as a non-verbal form of communication, in terms of psychological and sociocultural experience.42 According to him,
FIG 8
42. Rapoport, 1977. The semiotics of the city have been broadly studied by many authors of several different disciplines. Besides Rapoport, other examples could be Kevin Lynch (The Image of the City, 1960), who defines the city as a readable object, understood by a lexicon –the urban form and the elements that shape it– that is shared between those who plan it and those who inhabit it. On the other hand, Jan Gehl (Life Between Buildings, 1971) studied the factors that influenced the different kind of activities that can take place in the urban space and the “need for contact” with other citizens. Henri Lefebvre (The Right to the City, 1968) also describes the city as a semantic and semiotic system, which are transmitted and can be decoded or not. He puts with particular attention not only to the symbol in itself, but to the context: who and what? how? For what purpose? For whom? According to Lefebvre, these symbols have a clear message of use of space, and therefore become political.
the experience of the city is linked to physical and mental perception, where space is coded and decoded by users allowing for social interaction. The
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FIG 8. Aldo Van Eyck playgrounds in urban voids, Amsterdam, after World War II.
FIG 9. Jeff Wall, “Citizen”, (1996). A man that is defined as being a citizen –the inhabitant of a particular urban area, who has the rights and duties linked to his status of citizenship– enjoys the public space, relaxed, with no preoccupations or any distractions. He is lying in the foreground, in a way that he cannot see the camera, with a bag in his hand and his glasses on his stomach. The situation is presented as totally calm, where the beholder observes an intimate situation that takes place in the public space. The citizen is here presented as the inhabitant who has the right to enjoy the public space in an individual way, with no disturbances despite the presence of other people.
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FIG 10. A Street in Canary Warf. In front of the pier, a side walkway surrounds the water in a very enjoyable winding path. Next to it, in a slightly higher level, a square opens towards the pier. At the end, a passage under the building, free of any fence, invites to cross down the building if the pedestrian is in a rush, as predictably that is a shortcut from the walkway. However, despite all morphological configuration of the space invites to take the passage, a sign forbids it explicitly, under the warning of private property. In this case, morphological space and the signal send opposite messages upon the use of that space.
III. FROM OBJECT TO SUBJECT
place, by its morphological configuration and the subjective interpretation users make of it, either intuitively invites or refuses its occupation.
FIG 9-10
FROM SOCIAL GROUPS TO HOUSING TYPOLOGY Beyond the appearance of shared areas, the specificity of the members of a community can also have an impact on the bespoke design of the houses. I would argue that the diversity in single-family houses in relation to the repetition of multi-family ones is not a matter of budget but a result of the familiarity of the architects with the future occupants and their involvement in decision making. In order to analyse this situation and discuss its suitability in the case of Barcelona, the following case studies show examples of buildings of different sizes in which housing layout has responded to specific relationships between dwellers and their derived spatial needs.
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SMALL: 4 to 6 people. Schindler House, Rudolph Schindler, Hollywood, US, 1922.
FIG 11
Schindler House represents an example of a small size social group, which he defined as “cooperative dwelling”: two couples – Rudolph Schindler and Pauline Gibling, and Clyde and Marion D. Chase – and one or two guests. Four to six people comprise this small community with autonomy but interdependence of its members, in which there is a mix of affective and friendship ties, and mixes permanent residents with visitors. The plan of the house reflects this condition with generous individual rooms for personal isolation clustered in parts of the house dedicated to the groups that form the household. There is no living room as such, and the services are shared.
FIG 11. Schindler House, Rudolph Schindler, Hollywood, US, 1922. The house is divided into three areas: one for each couple and a central one with common service areas – kitchen and garage – and guests rooms. There is no living room as such, and the house avoids having a clear front and back typical of suburban housing. The areas for the couples are almost the same unit repeated, an L-shape towards a garden that becomes the couple’s private outdoor area. In addition, each member has its own room so their autonomy is guaranteed, which are big enough to become studios as well as bedrooms. The house has two entrances, one for each couple: after the porch there is a hall that distributes the circulation towards each of the two rooms of each wing. However, the relation of the members within the community is gendered both spatially and socially, as the rooms of both wives are the ones adjacent to the kitchen while the husband’s are on opposite ends. In addition, due to the lack of an alternative circulation both husbands had to interrupt the wives’ privacy – bedroom – in order to get to kitchen or common areas. In 1925 the Chase couple was substituted by Richard and Dione Neutra and their son. Under this new condition, and due to fundamental differences towards social morals, lifestyles and the use of the house, a personal and professional rivalry emerged between Rudolph Schindler and Richard Neutra, with the Neutras leaving the house in 1930.
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MEDIUM: 16 rooms. Leonidov Dwellings in Magnitogorsk, USRR, 1930. Ivan Leonidov proposed this project following a concept he developed
43.
Frampton, 1981, 68.
FIG 12
for the Leningrad student commune: “first, a new social concept, and second, its translation into architecture�.43 The household was detached from the family, which he considered a bourgeois structure. 16 people would have access to a private room to rest and work, and shared areas as bathrooms, kitchens and leisure. In addition, a neighbourhood was formed by groups of 8 houses (128 people in total), with a series of amenities such as kindergarten, meeting hall, cinema, nurseries, etc.
FIG 12. Ivan Leonidov, Competition Proposal for the Town of Magnitogorsk, 1930. Dwelling plan.
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In Leonidov’s scheme, the abolition of the nuclear family produces the creation of a shared semi-communal space. Interestingly enough, the same diagrammatic scheme is often applied to either young couples, students or elderly people. These demographic groups are often equivalent in housing layout – as an example the Via Julia tower won the public
FIG 13
competition as youth housing, and was built with the same scheme for elderly. Both groups correspond demographically to the previous and following stages of the nuclear family, as if the nuclear family structure would prevent their members from certain social relations and the need of shared areas. In this project, the rooms were dependent on the communal area and the amenities outside the building. Bradford Peck proposed a more gradual relation to shared areas in
FIG 14
44.
Hayden, 1981, 141.
a publication in 1900 named The World A Department Store, where different services are shared with different people.44 It consists of four apartments without kitchens per floor in a two-storey building. Each apartment consists of two rooms and a bath, which could be used separating husband and wife or the couple and their children. The two adjacent rooms of two apartments share a door, which offers the possibility of enlarging or shrinking the apartments according to needs.
FIG 13. Vidal Pons Galiana, Julia Tower, 2011. From project description: “There are three areas in the building. Each community has a larger space assigned, where users carry out most of their collective activities”
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FIG 14. Bradford Peck proposed a more gradual relation to shared areas in a publication in 1900 named The World A Department Store.
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LARGE: 50 people. La Borda, laCol architects’ cooperative, Barcelona, 2012-18. This building achieves the critical size for a cooperative building, ideally
FIG 15
from 30 to 50 people, as it allows having a critical mass that makes possible the construction of shared facilities in the building, but that at the same time is not too big for direct decision-making.45 La Borda is based on the Andel Cooperative Model, with a significant tradition in Scandinavian countries. Some of its characteristics are: a lifetime collective leasing model that
45. As defined by themselves. Based on a discussion with Cristina Gamboa, member of laCol, in a visit to la Borda – under construction – on November 25, 2017. For more information: www.laborda.coop
provides physical and psychological stability, based on private (collective) initiative in a non-speculative strategy, as well as collective ownership and self-management of the building.
FIG 15. La Borda, laCol architects’ cooperative, Barcelona, 2012-18. LaBorda contains 28 houses that were designed by the architects in a participatory process through workshops with the users and the cooperative. There are 300sqm of shared facilities, which correspond to the equivalent of giving up 10sqm per dwelling. The shared facilities include a kitchen and dining room, a co-working, laundry, guest rooms, health care room and a multifunctional area. In addition, there is a common courtyard, terrace, and bike parking. The houses are concentrated in the south facade – good lightning lighting and towards the inner courtyard of the block – while the shared areas are distributed in different floors of the north facade – street. There is a strategy of standardizing three sizes of flats, with freedom for the dwellers to decide upon their kitchen and finishes. Left: axonometry showing public passage in relation to common areas and volume of the building. Right: modules of rooms and typological variation of dwellings.
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EXTRA LARGE. 450 apartments. Mehr als Wohnen. ZĂźrich, 2008-15. Mehr als Wohnen (More than Living) is an example of an extra-large cooperative project.46 It contains 450 apartments and a total of 41.000 m2.
FIG 16
46. Information based on a visit to the building in Zurich, on March 22, 2018.
Its size brought a different approach to cooperative housing in terms of both procurement and management: dwellers were not necessarily directly involved in the procurement process, design was clustered in several buildings, and the administration was centralised and professionalised. Mostly formed by apartments, there is a second typology based on cluster housing, which is placed in a whole block and partially in some of the others. In this case, each house is composed of a common area of living plus a kitchen and three or four different units for autonomous households. Each unit, designed by architects and not bespoke, is composed of one or two rooms, a bathroom and a kitchenette. Dwellers apply to these units as a big household and not as individual families. This cluster typology offers an interesting mix of private and shared spaces, which has a resemblance in terms of privacy to Leonidov’s project. However, it is significant that this one does not address single dwellers, youth or elderly, but any household structure, which may include nuclear families wanting to live in a larger household structure.
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III. FROM OBJECT TO SUBJECT
FIG 16. Top: Cluster housing in dialonweg 2 building, Futurafrosh Architekten. Mehr als Wohnen. Zürich, 2008-15 Bottom: Mehr als Wohnen, masterplan agrupation showing housing plans as in 2009. The cooperative Mehr als Wohnen was formed by 55 different cooperatives in 2007. In 2009, they launched a competition to design both masterplan and buildings idea. 25 teams presented their projects, among which Duplex and Futurafrost architects were selected for the masterplan, and Miroslav Sik, Müller Sigrist and Pool for their buildings. The masterplan was designed by the two winning teams in a form of a cluster of buildings which seemed the most convenient in order to fragment the large program. The 13 buildings were designed by the 5 teams, each one in charge of 2 or 3 not neighbouring ones. The buildings were designed after some years of conversations and agreements between the different teams. It was built on public land with a leasing for 100 years, and a 20% subsidy over the construction cost. The ground floor includes all kind of shared facilities and services both public and private. When the buildings were finished, apartments were sorted through applicants, ensuring a social mixture. The adaptability of the household to the size of the flat is achieved through the moving of the household, as buildings include several kinds of apartments, mostly from 2 to 4 rooms. Some blocks include an “extra room”, which is an autonomous room occasionally with a kitchenette, accessed directly from the corridor, and whose use is linked to a house. The use of these rooms is negotiated with the neighbours (through the central reception) to host, e.g. a relative for a long period of time. The same building that hosts the reception offers guests rooms for the whole complex.
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As it has been analysed through the case studies, the pre-existence of a community may have a determining impact in the typology of housing.
FIG 17-18
“Living in community� is not determined by the size of the social group, but the qualitative relation between its members. However, there is a critical size over which decision-making is unlikely to happen in a direct manner and when the professionalisation of services is needed. The proposed model learns from that, and enables direct decision making within each housing scheme: each of them would work autonomously through different degrees of direct participation, according to the different occupancy time and living conditions of the dwellers. In order for that to happen, any model would be larger than the critical size, but it would be possible to have more than one cooperative in the building. In a larger scheme, the whole building would work through representative decisions with a centralised administration, in order to coordinate the three institutions that manage the three housing models: public administration for public housing, self-management for cooperative housing and foundations for emergency shelter. There are many possibilities regarding uses of common areas, and the dwellers should agree on their use and management. The critical mass of the building enables savings through consumer cooperatives and encourages the economic exchange of services. On the other hand, the blurring condition between domestic and productive activities can be addressed through strategies such as the autonomous room or the inclusion of productive spaces linked to the house.
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fig 17. Analysis of case studies. Shared areas in relation to household and building form. While Schindler’s house reduces the shared spaces by generous rooms, Leonidov’s dwellings provides a space for meeting. La Borda places common areas in the ground floor and first floor due to a double condition: where housing units would have less sunlight and where it is more accessible for dwellers. Mehr als Wohen includes shared spaces in the groundfloor for dwellers, and also commercial and productive areas. Unlike la Borda, shared spaces are not concentrated but distributed in the ground floors of the different buildings.
ACCESS MECHANISM
DOOR (LANDING)
CORRIDOR
HALL
FIG 18. Study of location of common areas in different building forms (landing, linear and block).
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DESIGN III
Urban Housing Artefacts These exercises explore the potential benefits and outcomes of the proposed housing model that mixes three models of non-commodified housing within a single building. They are not meant to be standardised solutions, but prototypes that show the many potential implantations of the model to specific urban contexts and building forms. In this case, three areas of Barcelona with different urban conditions have been selected. As a response, the building adopts three of the most common building forms of the city – cluster, linear and block.
I. CLUSTER. Safaretjos neighbourhood, Sant Coloma de Gramenet. On the outskirts of Barcelona, acknowledges the metropolitan condition of the city. It represents a traditional low-rise and compact neighbourhood, in front of a riverside park.
II. LINEAR. Located on top of an existing highway and built for the 1992 Olympic Games, close to the border where the city and a natural park meet.
III. BLOCK. Eixample, the industrial district of Barcelona designed by Ildefons CerdĂ , this site offers conditions of high density and compactness.
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III. FROM OBJECT TO SUBJECT
0
BESOS - SAFARETJOS
100m
0
RONDA
100m
0
100m
EIXAMPLE
119
SAFARETJOS CLUSTER SCHEME
Location: Safaretjos Neighbourhood, Santa Coloma de Gramenet, Metropolitan Barcelona Total cells: 242 Public housing: 120 Cooperative housing: 3x34 Emergency shelters: 20 Common areas: co-working, multi-purpose rooms, workshop, storage, technical rooms, meeting area, study room, garden, bike parking.
This building is located in the metropolitan area of Barcelona, right beyond the river Besòs that delimits the city in the northeast. It is a traditional neighbourhood with a historical dominant type next to the river, consistent of double height houses with their main facade towards the street and a loggia and garden to the back, leading to a river only urbanized in 1999. These houses included housing in the ground floor, which encouraged pedestrian mobility through the neighbourhood. These constructions have gradually been substituted by higher buildings, however, there are some remaining examples in the adjacent plots. The site has a pronounced slope towards the river, which brings to the proposal two passages that connect the existing street with the river park. To enforce pedestrian mobility, the street is considered as part of the domestic circulation, and a set of common squares are placed in the centre of the project, linked to the common areas, as they intend to encourage social activities.
120
common areas public housing cooperative housing emergency shelters
Emergency housing is located in the higher level, while public housing generates the podium that contains the squares. Both have a direct access from the street, which potentially allows multiple entrance points, expanding the domestic space towards the street. As this program contains a large number of cooperative dwellers, they are split into three clusters, each containing three buildings. Each cluster contains a cooperative shared area in the ground floor and another one in the rooftop, which reinterprets the “terrat”, a vernacular collective element that had community connotations. The rooftop of the public housing reinterprets the traditional gardens at the back of the houses.
III. FROM OBJECT TO SUBJECT
121
0
CLUSTER
100m
SITEPLAN
122
100m
00
100m 100
III. FROM OBJECT TO SUBJECT
0
SECTION
CLUSTER 10
3.identidad tipologica
59
3.identidad tipologica
5959
3.identidad tipologica 3.identidad tipologica
Studies on the typical traditional housing. The urban settlement on the higher street and the river on the other. Source: Arquitectos de Cabecera WAC 2017. (R.Olivera, R.Rubio, E.Llorens and L.Boloix.)
3.identidad tipologica 3.identidad tipologica
3.identidad tipologica
124
59
65 III. FROM OBJECT TO SUBJECT
62
63
CLUSTER PLAN LEVEL + 15,0
0
10
125
CLUSTER PLAN LEVEL + 15,0
126
0
10
III. FROM OBJECT TO SUBJECT
CLUSTER VIEW FROM COMMON AREAS TOWARDS THE SQUARE
127
CLUSTER FROM THE ROOM TO THE COMMON
128
III. FROM OBJECT TO SUBJECT
0
100m
CLUSTER PLAN LEVEL + 18,5
00
100m 100
129
CLUSTER PLAN LEVEL + 24,5
130
0
10
III. FROM OBJECT TO SUBJECT
CLUSTER VIEW FROM COOPERATIVE HOUSING
0
10
131
MIN: 3,5 CELLS (36m2) MAX: 10 CELLS (122m2)
MIN: 3,5 CELLS (36m2) MAX: 8 CELLS (98m2)
MIN: 3,5 CELLS (49m2) MAX: 8 CELLS (98m2)
CLUSTER PUBLIC HOUSING UNIT
132
III. FROM OBJECT TO SUBJECT
CLUSTER PUBLIC HOUSING UNIT
0
5
133
CLUSTER COOPERATIVE HOUSING UNIT
134
0
5
III. FROM OBJECT TO SUBJECT
1 CELL
1’5 CELLS
2 CELLS
CLUSTER EMERGENCY SHELTER UNIT
0
5
135
RONDA DE DALT LINEAR SCHEME
Location: Ronda Highway, Barcelona. Total cells: 77 Public housing: 35 Cooperative housing: 24 Emergency shelters: 18 Common areas: top: terrace, laundry, garden, meeting area ground floor: co-working, bike parking, storage, technical rooms. Public facility: 550 m2
The plot is located on top of one of the ring roads of the city, purposely built for the Olympic Games in 1992, which limits the city. Although the highway is currently being covered by public space, the availability of public land offers the formidable opportunity to build public housing in a city that has reached its geographic limits. On the other hand, it seems redundant to build generous public spaces in a sprawled area of the city that lacks compactness and sits right next to the biggest park in the city, the Collserola mountain range. The narrowness of the plot conditions the building, giving the section the organisational role that the plan traditionally had. As a result, elevated corridors become the main circulations all along the building while vertical circulations are placed at the ends of it, one for the cooperative and the other one for public and emergency shelter. Common areas are split into those more public, at street level, and those strictly
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common areas public facilities or commercial public housing cooperative housing emergency shelters
dedicated to dwellers, which are placed in a privileged elevated square easily reachable from all housing units. A number of rooms linked by a corridor determines public housing. The double height of the living room and a secondary entrance in the upper floor multiply the possibilities of use. Emergency housing is defined by four units plus two extra ones between modules that can be added to them or function as guest rooms for public housing. The shared areas are located at the end of the house. Cooperative housing is formed by six units which can be split or joined in multiple ways, and share a common living room and services. In addition, cooperative houses share a space on top of the building, which contains common areas and guest rooms.
III. FROM OBJECT TO SUBJECT
0
0
100m
LINEAR SITEPLAN
100m
00
100m 100
137
LINEAR CROSS SECTION
138
0
10
III. FROM OBJECT TO SUBJECT
LINEAR GROUND FLOOR PLAN
0
10
139
LINEAR SOUTH ELEVATION
140
0
10
III. FROM OBJECT TO SUBJECT
9 FLOOR
5 FLOOR
4 FLOOR
LINEAR PLANS
0
10
141
2 CELLS
3 CELLS
4 CELLS
LINEAR PUBLIC HOUSING UNIT
142
0
5
III. FROM OBJECT TO SUBJECT
1/2 CELL1
1CELL1
1,5 CELLS
2CELLS
2,5 CELLS
LINEAR COOPERATIVE HOUSING UNIT
0
5
143
1 CELL
1’5 CELLS
2 CELLS
LINEAR EMERGENCY SHELTER UNIT
144
0
5
III. FROM OBJECT TO SUBJECT
LINEAR EMERGENCY SHELTER UNIT
145
EIXAMPLE BLOCK SCHEME
Location: Left Eixample, Cerdà Masterplan, Barcelona. Total units: 174 Public housing: 72 Cooperative housing: 60 Emergency shelters: 42 Common areas: co-working, workshop, multi-purpose room, laundry, study room terrace Facility: 1100m2 in ground floor Commercial spaces: 1100m2 in ground floor
This project is situated in Eixample, the industrial city designed by Cerdà. As explained, Eixample is full of exceptions. In this case, the block is shared with a municipal market and a residential building, and is located in front of a double-block that contains a Hospital. There used to be a fire station in this plot, but it was temporarily moved to a park nearby and is currently awaiting to be relocated back to its original site. In the traditional block of Eixample the ground floor does not contain housing, but public uses such as commercial spaces, facilities or workshops, offering a mixture of living and working spaces. Houses were organised in a four-per-landing scheme with the great depth of 24m for only two facades and two party walls, causing a lack of ventilation and sunlight in the core of the building. With the opportunity that designing an entire block offers, the staircases have been placed in the inside of the block: a representative space that works both as a collective area and a climatically
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common areas public facilities or commercial public housing cooperative housing emergency shelters
controlled environment. Half of that courtyard is public and linked to the commercial spaces, while the other half is on a higher ground level, linked to the common areas for dwellers. From that point, which corresponds to a traditional semi-public level named “entresòl”, a system of double staircases emerges: one conducting to cooperative housing in the even numbered floors and the second one to public housing in the odd numbered ones. Cooperative units experiment with a double-height volume. In the upper floor, the space between the rooms is occupied by public housing. Emergency shelters occupy half the area of the upper floors, in a double height structure. The other half -north-west façade- houses the co-working and workshop spaces, featuring independent accesses from the street.
III. FROM OBJECT TO SUBJECT
147
0
BLOCK
100m
SITEPLAN
148
100m
00
100m 100
III. FROM OBJECT TO SUBJECT
Image 11. Traditional housing in Raval, inside Barcelona medieval walls. Source: Arquitectes de Capçalera
Image 11. Traditional housing in Raval, inside Barcelona medieval walls. Source: Arquitectes de Capçalera
Image 12. Antoni Gaudí’s the first Eixample. Casa Calvet 1899and (above) and Casa Batlló in 1907 (below). Firsthousing Eixample in example: Antoni Gaudí, Casa Calvet, 1899in(above) Casa Batlló, 1907 (below). From mid 19th Century, Barcelona demolished the medieval walls and grew towards the northern continuation of the “Rambles” –the main street of the medieval city. The first typologies of housing offer a two-per-landing scheme, where the whole plot is split through the longitudinal axis. The centre of the plan is a central void, partially occupied by the staircase. Hence, the entrance to the house is located in the centre, and conceptually the house is split in two: a half towards the street that has a representative role and a more private one towards the inner courtyard of the Cerdà’s block. Next to the party wall, small service courtyards bring light to the centre of the plan. The area next to these is meant to the service areas, including bedrooms, hence establishing a clear hierarchy between the two kind of house inhabitants.
Image 12. Antoni Gaudí’s housing in the first Eixample. Casa Calvet in 1899 (above) and Casa Batlló in 1907 (below).
Image 13. Josep Lluís Sert. Housing for Rent in Rosselló Street, 1929.
Image 13. Josep Lluís Sert. Housing for Rent in Rosselló Street, 1929. Left Eixample example: Josep Lluís Sert, Rosselló Rent Housing, 1929.
12
This situation changed from 1930s, since Josep Lluís Sert build his “Housing for Rent”. Sert had studied the works of Le Corbusier, and was a founder member of GATCPAC. The building is located in the left Eixample, where many medium-class and working families settled down. The house becomes much smaller, and Sert duplicates the number of houses per landing keeping the access in the centre of the plan. Thereupon, the access is not situated in the centre of the house but in one of its sides, and only one room and the dining room have windows towards the exterior. The kitchen, still linked to the service courtyard, is related directly to the dining room and not to any service room. The other two rooms, normally for the children, have air from the service courtyard next to the party wall, but do not receive direct sunlight. A new kind of hierarchy appears in the house between the parents and the children. This typology was implemented in Eixample in the following years as the typical one.
12
149
BLOCK GROUND FLOOR
150
0
10
III. FROM OBJECT TO SUBJECT
151 0
SECTION
BLOCK 10
FIRST FLOOR (ENTRESÃ’L)
SECOND FLOOR
BLOCK PLANS
152
0
10
III. FROM OBJECT TO SUBJECT
THIRD FLOOR
FIFTH FLOOR
BLOCK PLANS
0
10
153
SIXTH FLOOR
BLOCK PLANS
154
0
10
III. FROM OBJECT TO SUBJECT
BLOCK VIEW FROM CO-WORKING IN 6TH FLOOR
155
BLOCK COOPERATIVE HOUSING UNIT
156
III. FROM OBJECT TO SUBJECT
Lower and upper floor Possible distributions
BLOCK COOPERATIVE HOUSING UNIT
0
5
157
MIN: 1 CELL (25m2) MAX: 5 CELLS (125m2)
BLOCK PUBLIC HOUSING UNIT
158
0
5
III. FROM OBJECT TO SUBJECT
1 CELL
2 CELLS
BLOCK EMERGENCY SHELTER UNIT
0
5
159
PROTOCOLS OF NEGOTIATION The recent shift in architecture has re-politicised its practice, with people increasingly aware of the importance of actively participating in daily politics, decision making, personal responsibility and awareness of environment management. This adds to the awareness of the role housing plays in the city and the other agendas that housing implies beyond strictly dwelling. New groups are redefining the role of the architect, assuming new responsibilities in housing procurement through the inclusion of communities in design and resulting in significant changes of housing design. As a consequence of the adaptation of the domestic conditions described in the previous chapter to a specific plot and housing model, housing is able to expand and shrink to meet household needs over time, and at the same time it loses its compactness in a situation in which different domestic spaces are shared with different groups of people. This double condition, which is a result of concrete domestic needs, produces the emergence of a distinct housing typology: the elastic and scattered house that coexists within a building that involves different housing models. However, the different housing models – public, emergency shelters and cooperative dwellings – require this aggregation of rooms and potential changes to happen in different manners, as well as the appearance of different shared areas which respond to their specific needs and conditions.
Elastic House
Scattered House
161
COOPERATIVE
EMERGENCY
BLOCK
CLUSTER
LINEAR
PUBLIC HOUSING
162
III. FROM OBJECT TO SUBJECT
The proposed procurement system and housing model can be easily adapted to different areas of the city under different building forms, while addressing the different conditions of the three social groups and their residence time. The placing of common areas and circulations determines to a large extent the building design. This represents a different design strategy than the traditional addition of flats in public housing competitions. Talking about circles of privacy and activity allows different management strategies for the different areas, as well as different degrees of participation and involvement linked to residence time
Adaptation of the scheme to different building forms
Street New square Public facility or commercial space Common productive areas co-working and offices Common areas Cooperative housing household Cooperative shared areas Public housing households Emergency shelter households Emergency housing shared areas
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Conclusions
Historical housing policies in Barcelona have proved to be shortterm solutions unable to address the housing shortage in the long run, encouraging instead home ownership and a homogeneous social structure based on the nuclear family. Considering the current problem of lack of affordability and the over-fragmentation of housing procurement processes – between different agents, phases, and disciplines– this dissertation has proposed a strategy based on unifying different housing models currently procured separately and broadening the role of the architect beyond strictly design phase. As the “Barcelona Model” retrospectively showed, addressing the “city” but not the “urban” has major limitations, since it detaches urban transformations from the people supposed to benefit from them. For that reason, the proposal also includes dwellers in decision-making. The proposed strategy of mixing three existing housing models – public housing, cooperative housing and emergency shelters, which have different ownership schemes and procurement processes – in a single building has revealed that existing housing procurement mechanisms are sufficient to entail major changes in several aspects of housing. Through a multi-scalar approach to housing procurement, it is possible to simultaneously tackle diverse topics such as the possibility of redefining the notion of standard to address uncertain households or reconsider ing the physical boundaries of the house, blurring the rigid limit between
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public and private through a set of common areas and shared spaces with different groups of people. There are many benefits that arise from that and open the possibility for further impact in other facets, spanning from the protection of public assets through a diversified collective ownership to encouraging the alternative modes of economic integration. This strategy entrusts social togetherness as a device to find personal security, instead of the current promotion by administration of individual ownership and non-dependency on others. In this regard, collective decision-making processes allow dealing with conflicts that naturally appear as a result of social mixture. Decisions in the proposed building are taken at two levels. Firstly, the ones comprising the building as a whole and the shared areas among all members. Secondly, the ones referring autonomously within each housing model, dealt in different ways depending on the institution involved and the residence time of the dwellers: selfmanaged for the collectively owned cooperative, public administration and dwellers in the case of rent of public housing and foundations in the case of emergency housing in which dwellers stay for a short period of time. A scheme of shared housing models reveals itself as a tool to re-politicise housing: habituate dwellers to decision-making processes and make them aware of their personal responsibility in it. For that to happen, architects must better understand the social agendas that underlie housing policies, becoming mediators between administration, neighbourhood associations, academia and dwellers in the delivery of new public housing agendas and procurement processes. The presented designs are not meant to be solutions to a housing crisis that overcomes the discipline of architecture, but potential outcomes of the strategy placed in particular areas of the city that intend to contribute to the current debate on housing in relation to the discipline, urban context and typology. Thus, the projects have explored the feasibility of building these urban artefacts in certain areas of the city, adapting them to specific urban conditions and therefore resulting in different building forms. As a consequence, the shared spaces within the building are placed in different areas according to circulation efficiency and suitability in relation to other uses. These areas become part of the house, which loses its compactness through the appearance of both common areas and detached rooms. In
166
CONCLUSIONS
addition, shared ownership also opens up the possibility for the house to expand and shrink to meet user’s needs, in an agreement between dwellers, and to have an external use of redundant rooms of the house. This results in a typology defined by the scattered and elastic house, framed within a larger building of shared leasing. This represents the opposite case of the “generic typology” which is being provided in the large part nowadays: a flat for the nuclear family with clear borders in terms of ownership and use. The proposed approach intends to recognise the complexity of domestic needs and users, while providing mechanisms to make the house adaptable to further requirements and enhancing the benefits of living in a condition of social togetherness. There are some questions that arise from this approach and could be developed further, most obviously the mid-term effects of the proposed strategy applied at a larger scale. For that, potential plots have been identified to justify the feasibility to build a larger masterplan throughout the city through the combination of small-scale interventions, rather than large entire sectors dedicated to “social” housing, as it has occurred in the past. This responds to the concern of achieving a compact city that mixes use and social groups, to achieve an optimisation of public resources dedicated to infrastructure and facilities. This strategy would allow to have facilities hosted in the buildings distributed in different districts, as well as shared spaces between dwellers and neighbours. Having an impact in different neighbourhoods opens the possibility of considering a network of artefacts that can re-politicise housing at a larger scale allowing local communities to become an organised city-scale structure, capable of defending their claims on housing. This strategy manifests a clear idea of the role of housing in a city, as a reason for collective organisation, psychological stability and empowerment. Thus, housing needs to be acknowledged as a collective right as well as a personal responsibility, which can only happen voluntary and by participating in daily politics. Another possible development is the application of this strategy in different cultural and urban contexts. In that regard, Barcelona has been selected as case study due to its socio-political and architectural context,
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but its problems are common to many cities. The proposed strategy has been designed as an open methodology that could be extrapolated to other cultural and urban contexts. However, for that to happen it is necessary to consider local specificities and housing models, to analyse the legal framework that could be adopted and the agreements between the different groups involved. In addition, cultural background plays a key role since some cultures are more accustomed to live in “social togetherness� or even in existing shared models, while other ones prefer isolated homes. However, as it has been discussed with the case of Spain, the will of personal isolation through home ownership is an acquired behaviour that can also be reversed, and a model like the one proposed results in many benefits at different levels, the most important of which is to produce housing that is not conditioned to market variations, ensuring long-term affordability and social mixture. As housing policies have an impact far beyond housing supply, it is essential to address it as a matter beyond its built form, not planned as an individual asset or property, but as a collective belonging framed by the cultural and urban specificities of the city.
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CONCLUSIONS
169
BIBLIOGRAPHY IMAGE SOURCES ANNEX 1 ANNEX 2
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Image Sources
CHAPTER 1 FIG 1. Top: Busquets, Joan. Barcelona: The Urban Evolution of a Compact City. Rovereto, Trento: Nicolodi, 2005. Print. 392393. Below: Source: Ara newspaper. interactius.ara.cat/ barcelona-92/reportatge/les-xifres FIG 2. Slogans for Barcelona branding. lameva.barcelona.cat FIG 3. el Confidencial newspaper. FIG 4. INE, National Institute of Statistics. FIG 5. Ara newspaper. interactius.ara.cat/barcelona-92/ reportatge/les-xifres FIG 6. Alain Bertaud. alainbertaud.com FIG 7. Source: Evans, Robin. ‘Rookeries and Model Dwellings’ (1978) in Translations from Drawing to Buildings and Other Essays. London: AA Publications, 2011 (1978). 92117. Print. 107. FIG 8. Author’s drawing. FIG 9. Drawing by author with the data of w20.bcn.cat/ cartobcn. FIG 10. “Public Housing Competition in the area of the Pisa Cinema in Cornellà”, Barcelona. Organized by the IMPSOL (public housing institute) in 2017. Expedient: 187/16. Available online in IMPSOL website, accessed 15 March 2017. FIG 11. Willem Diepraam FIG 12. Aart Klein, “The Swans Walk”, Antwerpen, Belgium, 1949. FIG 13. Jean-baptiste André Godin, Godin 1817-1888: Le Familistère De Guise, Ou, Les Équivalents De La Richesse : the Familistère at Guise, Or, the Equivalents of Wealth. Bruxelles: Editions des Archives d’architecture moderne, 1980. Print. 31,162. FIG 14. huettenundpalaeste.de FIG 15. coworker.org FIG 16. Hayden,1981, 64. FIG 17. Catasús House: Coderch, José A, and Carles Fochs. J.a. Coderch De Sentmenat, 1913-1984. Catalonia: Generalitat de Catalunya, Departament de Política Territorial i Obres Públiques, Direcció General d’Arquitectura i Habitatge, 1988. Bach Dwellings: Diaz, Gomez C, and Mira P. J. Ravetllat. Habitatge I Tipus a L’architectura Catalana: Singularitat I Juxtaposicio Del Tipus En Edificis En Altura. Barcelona: Edicions Coac., 1989. Print. 27-27. FIG 18. Teige, Karel, The Minimum Dwelling, 1932. 358. FIG 19. Plans: Ginzburg, M I. A. Dwelling: Five Years’ Work on the Problem of Habitation. London: Fontanka Publications, 2017. Print. 105. Sections: Kopp, A. Town and Revolution: Soviet Architecture and City Planning 1917-1935. London: Thames & Hudson, 1971. Print.136. FIG 20. Robin Evans, ‘Figures, Doors and Passages’, 1978, in Evans, Robin. ‘Figures, Doors and Passages’ (1978) in Translations from Drawing to Buildings and Other Essays. London: AA Publications, 2011 (1978). Print. 54-55. FIG 21. Becker, Annette, Laura Kienbaum, and Kristien Ring. Building and Living in Communities: Ideas, Processes, Architecture. Basel: Birkhäuser, 2015. Print. 169.
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CHAPTER 2 FIG 1. Jean-François Batellier. L’Architecture d’aujourd’hui, n°220, avril 1982, p.66. FIG 2. Benevolo, Leonardo. History of Modern Architecture. London: Routlege & Kegan Paul, 1971. (Originally published in italian in 1960). Print. 519. FIG 3. Berdini, Paolo. Walter Gropius. Zurich: Verlag für Architektur Artemis, 1984. Print. 120. FIG 4. 3 Inches tumblr. FIG 5. Ricardo Bofill Taller d’Arquitectura Archives. FIG 6. Source: Schneider, Tatjana, and Till, Jeremy. Flexible Housing. Oxford: Architectural Press, 2007. Print. 73. FIG 7. newspaper el País, online version FIG 8. Author’s drawing. FIG 9. Author’s drawing. FIG 10. Spanish 1995 edition of Neufert, Ernst, Peter Neufert, and Johannes Kister. Neufert. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2012. Print. 168-171. FIG 11. miescribania.blogspot.co.uk FIG 12. Merrild, Annete, The Room Project Barcelona. annettemerrild.com FIG 13. Picture Benny LamSoCORex Features. Source: telegraph.co.uk FIG 14. Adam Dade and Sonia Hanney, Stacked Hotel Room No. 10, 2002. Source, Ikon Gallery. FIG 15. Huang Qingjun – “Family Stuff”. Source: huangqingjun.com FIG 16. www.sfgirlbybay.com “bohemian modern style from a san francisco girl” FIG 17. Source: Ponti, Lisa L, and Germano Celant. Gio Ponti: The Complete Work 1923-1978. Milano: Passigli Progetti, 1990. Print. 194. FIG 18. hiddenarchitecture.net FIG 19. Arquitectos de Cabecera.
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CHAPTER 3 FIG 1. newspaper el Pais, 17 July 2016. FIG 2. Piso Piloto FIG 3. Arnstein, Sherry R. “A Ladder of Citizen Participation,” JAIP, Vol. 35, No. 4, July 1969, pp. 216-224, 217. FIG 4. solidar-architekten.de FIG 5: Fleck, Brigitte. Malagueira. Álvaro Siza in Évora. Freiburg: Syntagma-verlag, 2013. Print. 246-247. FIG 6: Fleck, Brigitte. Malagueira. Álvaro Siza in Évora. Freiburg: Syntagma-verlag, 2013. Print. 218. FIG 7. Author’s drawing. FIG 8. Lefaivre, Liane, and Ingeborg . Roode. Aldo Van Eyck: The Playgrounds and the City. Rotterdam: NAi Uitgevers, 2002. Print.17. FIG 9. Wall, Jeff, and Thierry Duve. Jeff Wall: The Complete Edition. London: Phaidon, 2009. Print.122-123. FIG 10. Source: Picture by the author, 26 February 2018. FIG 11. Source: The Grand Domestic Revolution: A History of Feminist Designs for American Homes, Neighborhoods, and Cities. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2000 (1981). Print. 249. FIG 12. Source: Frampton, Kenneth. Ivan Leonidov. New York: Rizzoli, 1981. Print. 76 (masterplan) and 78 (house). FIG 13. Source: dezeen.com FIG 14. Hayden, Dolores. The Grand Domestic Revolution: A History of Feminist Designs for American Homes, Neighborhoods, and Cities. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2000 (1981). Print. 141. FIG 15. laCol.coop FIG16. Top: Journal Hochparterre “Wohnen im Dialog”. August 2015. Glattbrugg: Switzerland, 2015. Print. 32. Bottom: Journal Hochparterre “Ein Quartier Entsteht”. Nr. 11/2009. Glattbrugg: Switzerland, 2009. Print. 7. FIG 17. FIG 7. Author’s drawing. FIG 18. FIG 7. Author’s drawing.
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ANNEX 1
The Social Role of Public Housing
According to municipality, Barcelona has currently a 63,3% of private housing stock, a 30,3% of market rent stock and 1,5% of public rental housing.1 However, ‘it should be desirable that [public rental stock] grew up to 15%’2. This document published by the council in 2016 describes the present situation of housing crisis and the measures being taken to solve it. Although these statements may look selfexplanatory, they implicitly contain ideas about housing which represent a shift from the past decades. Firstly, ‘public housing’ means that it is not only paid but also owned by public administration; secondly, it is rental regime and its cost is under market price; and finally, there is an effort to increase its quantity.
the first ones in 1930s to nowadays. The housing policy, as the growth of the city itself, followed two different speeds. On the one hand, long term masterplans. This mainly refers to Cerdà Plan of 1851, the County Plan of 1953 and Metropolitan General Plan in 1974; and their partial modifications. On the other hand, the development was linked to big events whose purpose was to regenerate certain parts of the city and that took place every few decades: 1888, 1929, 1952, 1992 and 2004. These events condensed a long-time evolution in few years, and due to their immediacy were a direct translation of explicit political ideas on the city. The first ones where fairs: Universal Exhibition in 1888, for which the Citadel Park was built,
Public housing policies are anything but new in the
and an International Exhibition in 1929 in the lower part of
history of the city: the different administrations have had
Montjuïc mountain, which included the German Pavilion
extensive ‘public housing’ policies during the past decades.
by Mies van der Rohe. During the dictatorship (1939-
It is estimated that 1/8 of the city’s housing stock was built
1975), the main events were linked to political or religious
by the administration3. Why is then an existing social and
motivations, like the Eucharistic Congress in 1952 that gave
housing crisis? In order to understand this situation, this
name to an entire new neighbourhood (Congress). Back to
essay analyses the meaning of public housing and its role
democracy, the city hosted the Olympic Games in 1992 –in
within the social policy of the city at different moments from
several locations, the most important one in the upper part
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ANNEX 1: THE SOCIAL ROLE OF PUBLIC HOUSING
of Montjuïc, in the upper part– and the Cultures’ Forum in
altered due to further requirements. These modifications
2004, a new kind of event created ex-novo that reshaped the
offer additional information of the role of housing in a
end of the Diagonal Avenue.
certain moment by explicitly shifting it from the previous
These different periods are studied through a selection
one in an accumulative process.
of case studies linked to the different periods: Casa Bloc
As the most common building category of the city, and
worker’s Housing by Gatcpac in 1932-36; Tupolev National
by understanding that the quality of a public space is strongly
Housing for slum dwellers [chavolistas] in 1952-56; la Ribera
linked to the buildings that shape it, housing becomes a
Social Housing by Josep Llinàs in 1998-2005; and la Borda
relevant indicator of urban transformation. Ultimately, this
cooperative Housing in 2017 by the collective laCol. This
essay offers an explanation of which strategies were taken in
selection is knowingly limited; many other case studies would
the city towards urban form from the perspective of public
also be equally relevant. However, even though the outcome
housing.
–a variable amount of public housing– is apparently equivalent in every period, a deeper analysis shows that this is not the case and the interventions had very different aims under the same title of ‘public housing’. The analysis departs from the understanding that the socio-political context and the housing policy are reflected in the location, procurement system, housing typology, the ideas of what public housing should achieve and in the intended user. In some cases, the original user or layout has been
179
WORKER’S HOUSING DURING THE SECOND
emphasize the importance of the commons, the way from
SPANISH REPUBLIC:
the street to the house is a succession of shared spaces: from
CASA BLOC, GATCPAC 1934-36
the street one has to cross one of the two main squares, then take the staircase up to the elevated streets and finally into the house. The domestic space is formed by a duplex:
The decade of 1930s represented a reformist period
the common areas for the household are in the lower floor
between two dictatorships. With the socialist government of
related with the access and the common corridor, while the
the Second Spanish Republic (1931 until the Civil War in
rooms are placed upstairs. There is a succession of spaces
1936), many social and political reforms took place with the
from the most public to the most private, associated to the
scope of modernizing the country. In terms of architecture,
different levels: street and square (groundfloor), common
a group of left-wing progressive architects, GATCPAC ,
corridor and shared space of the house (lower level), and
was founded in Barcelona in 1929, with Josep Lluís Sert,
finally the private room (upper level). Six rooms would
Josep Torres Clavé and Joan Baptista Subirana among its
correspond to two houses, which could be divided between
members.
both units according to their needs in terms of household.
4
In 1934, these architects started the project of Casa
The construction of Casa Bloc was interrupted due
Bloc, a collective housing for 200 workers’ families in the
to the Civil War in 1936, after which the new military
outskirts of the city. It was promoted in cooperation with
government finished the building. Over the years, the
trade unions under the auspice of the Catalan government.
original meaning of the building shifted both in terms of
The architecture followed the modernist ideas of le
urban form and social agenda. On the one hand, the city
Corbusier, being the most noticeable example of rationalistic
grew and what was at that time part of the periphery became
architecture of the city. Following a hygienic approach, the
a consolidated area, which changed the original sense of the
architects rejected the idea of the closed block typical from
open courtyards and the forcefulness of the S-shape. While
Eixample or the medieval city. Instead, they proposed an
Casa Bloc was originally meant to be inhabited by workers, it
open S-shaped block that would revolve around two open
was finally occupied by militaries and their families, military’s
courtyards, stating the importance of the relation between
wives, and at a later stage, national police members. One of
the built area and the urban void in a suburban area.
the courtyards was enclosed with a new building for police
Carles Martí argues that the Casa Bloc was not a response to the medieval city, but a project against the industrial city, that had its reason in speculation.5 According to him, the industrial city is based in a traffic infrastructure and in the subdivision [parcelación] as a filling mechanism. Therefore, the ‘architectonic type’ is subordinated and is incapable of defining the urban form. The buildings like
members, and the courtyard converted into police’s stables. Back to democracy at the end of 1970s, the new block was demolished, and a range of users moved there. Finally, in 2017 and within a crisis context, a competition took place in order to transform part of the Casa Bloc in emergency housing for people at risk of social exclusion, victims of evictions and people with disabilities.
Casa Bloc try to bring a new urban order through the
As it can be read, the ‘same building’ responded to
rationalization of the forces that create the industrial city:
many different situations under different social and political
‘as a demonstrative element to challenge the piling-up, the
agendas: workers’ cooperative, military’s families, regular
disorder and the jumble of a city of speculation’.
private flats and emergency shelters.
6
As it was intended for workers and in order to
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ANNEX 1: THE SOCIAL ROLE OF PUBLIC HOUSING
GATCPAC, in Athens (1933) :R. Torres, J.LL. Sert, A. Bonet, J. Torres y R. Ribas
Casa Bloc, Gatcpac, 1932-36
181
2017
Tupolev, 1952-56
182
ANNEX 1: THE SOCIAL ROLE OF PUBLIC HOUSING
included the ‘Congress’ neighbourhood. The altar for the DICTATORSHIP AND WORKING CLASS POLYGONS (1939-75). TUPOLEV, 1952-56
event was about to be built next to Diagonal Avenue. However, there was one of the aforementioned slum communities previously existing close to the area, and it was considered inappropriate to keep it due to the visit of cardinal and other Vatican authorities. The slums were demolished from one
During the period 1950-1970 the city of Barcelona experimented a growth without precedents in terms of public housing, known as the ‘housing polygons’ or ‘housing estates’. Manuel de Solà Morales referred to them as ‘one of the saddest chapter in the history of modern Barcelona. The product of the dictatorial regime and economic and cultural stagnation, they have made a lamentable mark on the urban landscape’7. However, he also underlines the importance in terms of quantity of the interventions: 127.000 housing units were built under the same strategy to house 500.000 people in a short period of time. This urgency was a consequence of the wave of migrations the city suffered from 1950 to 1960, due to the reindustrialization of the country that was politically isolated from Europe8. Solà Morales also underlines that, aside of poverty and precarious living conditions, the slums presented a threat of instability to political and economic powers.9 Building public housing meant, in that time, to build housing for the working class that were building their own slums in the outskirts10. In order to stop that growth a series of disconnected polygons were built through the ‘National Plan of Housing’, the creation of the Ministry of Housing and the ‘Social Emergency Laws’. The polygons were recognisable by the large scale of the intervention, the repetitiveness of the same block and the lack of a designed public space or public facilities. Large areas of the city were built hastily and only with housing, causing a zoning situation to the city that was previously inexistent at that scale. Under the title of ‘Eucharist and Peace’, the XXXV Eucharistic Congress took place in Barcelona in 1952. As
day to the other.11 In order to accommodate the inhabitants of the slum, 68 housing units were built by the National Housing Institute (INV) in Poblenou. The intervention took form of eight concrete towers tightened in an undesired and highly polluted industrial location: the outskirts of the city, between the industries and a railway infrastructure. Even though it was next to the sea, a wall was a physical limit. Moreover, at that time the beach was used as a landfill. The towers were designed by the INV, being their form and procurement a consequence of urgency: they had three houses per landing in a T-shape plan responding to hygienic ideas of ventilation and lighting, and had the appearance of a (Russian) rocket after which they were named: Tupolev. All houses responded to the same typology: the 68 units were offered indistinctively to different kinds of families and households. For many years the zone stayed as undesired. However, a set of changes took place in the area some years later, including the arrival of the underground in 1977 and the demolition of the wall towards the sea in 1987. The surrounding industrial fabric was gradually replaced by housing. The most noticeable change came with the Olympic Games in 1992: the highway was built and covered with a park on top of it. Suddenly, the Tupolevs shifted from being an undesired area of the city to have an advantageous position: between the historical neighbourhood of Poble Nou and a park, after which the beach was converted into the biggest leisure area of the city. Nowadays, due to its privileged location and views towards the sea, this originally undesired area is at risk of gentrification.
had happened before, the organization of a major event provoked a series of changes in the city, which in this case
183
DEMOCRACY AND OLYMPIC
the city developed during the Olympic transformation. This
TRANSFORMATIONS (1975-2008):
project exemplifies the characteristics of ‘Model Barcelona’:
TOWN PLANNING BUILDINGS AROUND SANT
a careful attention to the design of the public space through
AGUSTÍ VELL. JOSEP LLINAS ARCHITECT,
the footprint of the façade, the importance of the corners15
1998/2002/2005.
and the Mediterranean constructive elements inherited of vernacular architecture.
The 1980s and 1990s were marked by the Olympic Games held in Barcelona in 1992. It experimented noticeable changes at all levels the following years. Pascual Maragall, the mayor of the city from 1982 to 1997, undertook the transformation of the city under the ideas of the town architect Oriol Bohigas. In parallel, the School of Architecture was involved in the research for the urban form in workgroups such as the ‘Urbanism Laboratory’ lead by Manuel de Solà Morales. The combination of the professional practice in the developing of the city and the academic commitment of ETSAB12 brought the best generation of architects in the city of recent times, and a particular way of understanding the city and its architecture known as ‘Barcelona Model’. As Joan Busquets points out, the ‘Olympic programme must be seen as a singular stimulus within a broader strategy.’13 The major changes of the city included a new perimeter highway, new centrality areas that matched with the Olympic installations and a new strategy for the medieval city - that was insecure, insalubrious and with some areas in danger of collapse.
Most of the times these kind of public housing buildings were bid through a public competition: in response to a brief the participants would present their architectonic proposal in anonymous boards. Both the competition system and the anonymity of proposals were a novelty that came with democracy, and is still in effect. The participants would respond to a brief set by the administration in the prevision of a typical household and inhabitants, and a neutral jury would choose the best proposal according to qualitative and economic parameters. Although there was a certain degree of variation in the typical house layout, it was clear that the different institutions in charge of procuring housing were thinking in a particular house which left aside the not-typical families which would defer from the nuclear family that needs a two- or three-bedroom flat. The process would then continue with the selection of the users according to certain parameters such their income, properties and requirements as risk of exclusion. Ultimately, in order to recover part of the investment, the houses were sold to these users at affordable prices. The administration would accomplish their scope: to supply houses to people that needed them. However, once
In order to improve the medieval city, several
sold, the owner would be able to introduce his house into the
interventions took place: from the construction of major
private housing market, transforming a public investment
city facilities such as museums or university faculties, to the
into a private asset. This matter became particularly relevant
improving of public space through the ‘hollowing’ of the
during the real state-bubble from the end of the 1990s to
urban fabric and the construction of new public housing
2008, when housing became a major speculative business.
in order to redefine segments of the city and attract new
At that time, many people considered being awarded by
neighbours which would bring new uses to the area. A
public housing as a lottery: not a supportive help from the
housing example of this moment is the town planning for
housing department but a life-time present.
14
buildings around Plaza Sant Agustí Vell, in the la Ribera neighbourhood of the medieval city of Barcelona. It is one of the late interventions in the area, starting few years after the Games, and it is a consequence of the ideas of
184
ANNEX 1: THE SOCIAL ROLE OF PUBLIC HOUSING
Sant Agustí Vell, Josep Llinàs, 1998-2005
185
la Borda coperative housing, collective laCol, 2017
186
ANNEX 1: THE SOCIAL ROLE OF PUBLIC HOUSING
project since 2011. HOUSING UNDER SCARCITY (2008-): LA BORDA COOPERATIVE HOUSING. LACOL ARCHITECT’S COLLECTIVE, 2012-2017.
In 2012, a housing project arises from the neighbours of Can Batlló. It is managed as a housing cooperative under a leasing regime on a plot provided by the city council. This agreement was signed in 2015, the year in which a new
After many years of economic growth, in 2008 the collapse of a foreign company –Lehman Brothers– burst the Spanish real-estate bubble. The country, whose economy depended upon construction, undertook a deep economic crisis that soon turned into a social and political one. Building permit’s applications plummeted, unemployment rocketed and building economy was paralyzed. Architects saw how the administration stopped bidding new architecture projects, which was their major source of income. Offices shrank drastically, while many closed or looked for projects abroad. Due to the lack of public investment, the way in which architecture had been produced for decades was not possible anymore. In addition, there was a housing crisis due to the large amount of evictions, the significant escalation of housing prices and an increasing gentrification. Architecture in the whole country entered in a disciplinary crisis. While established offices tried to adapt their work in the new context, a younger generation of architects recently graduated understood that they could not inherit the mindset of older generations’ offices, neither in their organization nor their production. There was the need for a change in the way architecture was thought. One of them was laCol, which is a collective of 14 architects. Based in Sants, a historical neighbourhood of Barcelona, they started to work with the neighbours in order to ‘work with architecture for the social transformation, as a tool to intervene in the environment in a critical manner’16. The origins of the group depart from the local in which they gathered to work on their diploma projects. Some of their projects were held in “Can Batlló”, a historical factory of Sants that the neighbours claimed for
political party whose members were previously activists got into power17. Their main campaign’s promises referred to the lack of affordable housing and strategies against its commodification. As part of their political agenda, they try to promote cooperative housing under right of usage for longtime span, which is new for Spain - even though common in other countries. The first experiment was designed by laCol and involved the neighbours of Can Batlló. ‘La Borda’ contains 28 houses. The houses are designed by the architects in a participatory process through workshops with the users and the cooperative, and they are designed with the specific requirements of the users and households. In this kind of procurement there is a change in the process of design: unlike in the previous examples, the final user is known before the design process, who at the same time is aware that the house may be used by other cooperative’s members after him. After this first experience that was a bilateral agreement between the council and the cooperative the municipality decided to launch a co-housing competition: cooperatives could apply for any of the 7 plots offered to build their project presenting beforehand the inhabitants and the architecture project. This presents a major shift in housing procurement: the competition is not addressed to architects and aims for an architecture project, but it targets instead a community project that includes the building, its users, and its management. It also presents a change in the way housing is owned: it belongs for 90 years to the cooperative who is in charge of maintenance and select dwellers, after which its property returns to the city council.
their use as a community space. After a long and mediatic process in which they were a key figure, the factory is selfmanaged by the neighbours. Can Batlló is an ongoing
187
DEFINING PUBLIC. DEFINING SOCIAL
of their analysis, Anton Costas, economist in the University of Barcelona (UB), refers that the situation of Spain until mid-70s was similar to the current of most of European
As it has been explained through the different case
countries nowadays: roughly a half of the housing stock
studies, public housing had different social purposes in
managed by property and half of it managed by rent20. He
different moments. Although all of them were paid by
underlines that the idea of owning housing is not something
public administration, their ownership did not stay public
culturally inherent to the Spanish population, but something
in all the cases. In addition, the meaning of ‘social’ was
that was encouraged through tax deductions since the 70s.
entirely different in every case. So was the procurement. In the 1930s Casa Bloc was produced by a group of architects for a worker’s trade union. During the dictatorship, official architects built large housing estate for working class slum dwellers in standardized houses, with no consideration for the commons and with a zoning strategy. Each of these projects suffered several transformations after their completion, which included a contemporary view on what ‘social housing’ meant. In democracy, housing was
Housing, politics and social agenda are interrelated subjects. Therefore, the first issue that needs to be clarified when addressing this topic is the definition of ‘public’ and ‘social’. This ultimately could be summarized with the question: why and for whom, as a society, do we build public housing? Housing standards, procurement, management, location and typology will be a result of the answer that emerges from this question.
procured through public competitions for architects’ offices,
From my point of view, in order to address the
for standardized households and sold under an affordable
current crisis of housing and the loss of identity of the city
price. After 2015, and due to a crisis context, housing is not
of Barcelona, housing should be protected as a common:
meant to be privatized anymore; the intention is to create a
something that belongs primarily to the city and its society
large public owned housing stock that can regulate market
as a whole. In parallel, it also is way to improve the city
prices. In the case of la Borda, housing is designed by a
from the domestic space of the inhabitant. This can be
collective or architects working for a housing cooperative.
achieved only by a legislation that protects housing and local
Housing is considered as a public asset that must belong
communities on the one hand, and a public owned housing
to the city council, who is also responsible for its long-term
stock on the other.
administration. The definition of the main purpose of housing in the city is the crucial issue, be this the right to a house or the right to private property, therefore commodification. “We do not want a society of proletarians but a society of proprietaries’18. This sentence pronounced by José Luis de Arrese, minister under the Franco dictatorship in May 2nd 1959, evidences the housing policy the regime took from the 1960s onwards. Housing, and social housing, was privatized. Every worker was in possession of its own house: the ideal and ambition of a property entered the Spanish houses. In 2015, the exhibition ‘Piso Piloto’19 analysed qualitatively and quantitatively the problem of housing in Barcelona. As part
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ANNEX 1: THE SOCIAL ROLE OF PUBLIC HOUSING
ENDNOTES 12 Escola Tècnica Superior d’Arquitectura de Barcelona. At that time the only school of architecture in the city. 1 Barcelona’s Housing Guide. Barcelona City Council, Social Rights Section, Housing Department. November 2016. P.3. 2
Ibid. Moreover, in p.18: 1,5% means 6.300 housing units. The 15% rate is established by the Law 18/2007 for the Right to Housing.
3
It is estimated that out of 800.000 houses of Barcelona, 100.000 were build by public administration. This is only an estimation and there is not official data about it. However, it gives an idea of the proportion. As it happens, 15% that the administration wants to achieve coincides with the estimated 1/8 proportion.
4
Grup d’Arquitectes i Tècnics Catalans per al Progrés de l’Arquitectura Contemporània
5
Carles Martí, ‘The Casa Bloc: a Fragment of the Modern City’. Arquitectura Viva Journal, nª11, 1987, pp 20-23
6
Ibid.
7
Solà-Morales, i R. M. Deu Lliçons Sobre Barcelona: Els Episodis Urbanístics Que Han Fet La Ciutat Moderna = Ten Lessons on Barcelona : Urbanistic Episodes That Have Made the Modern City. Barcelona: Col·legi d’Arquitectes de Catalunya, 2009. Print. P.466.
8
It has to be remarked that as Spain did not participate in the World War II, therefore it was not part of the Marshall Plan. The main reconstruction took place after the Civil War in 1940s.
9
Ibid. 476.
10
‘Chavolas’ is the specific word that refears to this kind of selfconstructed and precarious houses. They were a common phenomenon in all the industrial cities. ‘Chavolista’ refers to the inhabitant –and builder– of the ‘chavola’.
11
For more information: http://www.lavanguardia.com/local/ barcelona/20150627/54433068498/barracas-barcelona-campnou-congreso-eucaristico.html
13
Busquets, Joan. Barcelona: The Urban Evolution of a Compact City. Rovereto (Trento: Nicolodi, 2005. Print. P.343. Joan Busquets presents an analysis of the evolution of the city. For more information refer to the book written by the journalist Llàtzer Moix in ‘The City of the Architects’ details the whole process and changes of the city related to the Olympic games. Moix, Llàtzer. La Ciudad De Los Arquitectos. , 2002. Print.
14
‘Esponjamiento’ is the Spanish word used to refer this urban intervention.
15
The importance of the corner as the defining element of the city and meeting point is a central argument to the ‘Model Barcelona’, to which Manuel de Solà Morales dedicated an exhibition in Fòrum de les Cultures 2004. The corner is defined as the “essential geometry of urbanity”, without which the city is not possible. They advocate fro the compact city in front of the disperse one without corners.
16
From their website: www.lacol.coop. Translated by the author. Accessed on 28 June 2017.
17
The party’s name is “Barcelona en Comú” (Barcelona in Common). The major, Ada Colau, was an activist and the founder of a platform against evictions.
18
‘No queremos una España de proletarios sino de propietarios’ José Luis de Arrese, en el homenaje que le tributaron los agentes de la propiedad inmobiliaria. Newspaper ABC: 02/05/1959, pp 41-42. http://linz.march.es/Documento.asp?Reg=r-73814
19
‘Model Apartment’. Organized by the city councils of Barcelona and Medellín and the museums Centre de Cultura Contermporànea de Barcelona (CCCB) and Museo de Antioquia of Medellín. It compared Barcelona and Medellín from the problematic of housing. http://www.pisopiloto.org/en/
20
[Piso Piloto, Exhibition Material. https://www.youtube. com/watch?time_continue=1063&v=C8EwEPEO6_o Accessed June 27 2017]
189
ANNEX 2
Housing: Object, Political Device and City Strategy
HOUSING AS OBJECT Housing constitutes the vast majority of cities. As a physical space –the object itself– it can be understood as the spatial representation of the life of its inhabitants, expressing their culture, social characteristics and habits in certain historical moments. It is not strictly true that the city and the architecture shape the behaviour of citizens, but both citizens and physical space are influenced by the same ideas and historical processes, and bias each other. If housing represents a certain identity through the act of living, with the same importance and in a different scale the city shows itself through its monuments. Monuments act as landmarks, but also as symbols of the city that someone
habits of its citizens: temporality vs. evanescence, materiality vs. intangibility and collectivism vs. individualism. In many European cities, these two ideas of the city’s identity –the ‘city of neighbours’, as the personal private space, and the ‘city of monuments and events’, as the collective memory, – are in direct conflict as a result of the large increase of tourism economy. The ‘city of monuments’, that needed to host all its visitors, encroached the traditional space of the ‘city of neighbours’ inflicting a major gentrification process. Hence, the city becomes a place of political representation and confrontation between opposite interests and ideas on it, in which people feels empowered to express its claims and defend their interests in both sides of the discussion.
choose selectively as defining elements of the character of
On the one hand housing is defended by its
the city at certain moments, which can take the form of a
inhabitants as a right. Not only as a social claim, but
square, a building, a sculpture, an obelisk, etc. It is through
also as a legal one: the Spanish Constitution compels the
monuments that cities build their history and collective
government to provide “decent and adequate housing”. By
memory. They are preserved in a long-time span and they
this definition, housing is not anymore undefined area in a
ultimately become icons of the city. As a consequence,
masterplan whose importance relies in the public space and
monuments are the main attractions when visiting a city,
its monuments, but it also includes everything that happens
and as a representation of its identity are opposed to the
within the domestic space. As any other public service,
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ANNEX 2: HOUSING: OBJECT, POLITICAL DEVICE AND CITY STRATEGY
housing becomes the public authority’s responsibility, who
due to the lack of protection of housing –which was not
is in charge firstly to define the meaning of ‘decent’ and
needed before even though this situation was predictable– the
then to quantify it: how big and how expensive? For which
fluctuant population of Barcelona started to exert economic
household in terms of members and their relationships?
pressure on the centre of the city, a process that translated
It also concerns the layout: how many rooms, how many
into a gentrification of the nearby neighbourhoods. Housing
toilets? Secondly, it also needs to provide it through public
changed its role from hosting long term inhabitants –historic
mechanisms and institutions. It also raises the question
communities– to ephemeral visitors who would agree
about the need or not to intervene into existing housing if
with overpaying while require informal permissiveness on
the defined housing standards improve over time. But most
city’s regulations. Housing becomes then an asset, a target
hardly, housing also needs to be defined in terms of qualities,
both for investors, who may not even live in the city, and
which is much more difficult to quantify in a bureaucratic
locals who may need an extra income. Furthermore, the
system – and many times also in economic balances. The
commodification of housing has been aggravated since the
discussion revolves around the importance of preserving and
beginning of the crisis a decade ago, and due to the large
qualitatively defining housing, privately owned and lived, as
number of evictions that have taken place. Hence, the
a city’s historical heritage – the category of a monument – by
right to housing crashes frontally with the right to private
itself, as it is capable of explaining the collective history and
property. In this conflict, the different authorities are forced
memory. The importance of the inhabitants in the forming
to position themselves in order to privilege one or another,
of a city’s identity contrasts with its feebleness, as they are
with the further potential situation in which the priorities
linked to the affordability of housing and the threats of
of the different administrative levels are not coincident.
economic interests.
This fact evidences the situation of permanent conflict that
On the other hand, some cities have attracted attention of visitors and investors since a particular moment. As an example, a strong campaign aiming at promoting Barcelona
involves housing. The importance of housing relies once more in its political approach rather than in its physical space, making necessary a constant negotiation on it.
as a brand with the goal of increasing the local economy through tourism has been taking place since the Olympic Games in 1992. The campaign has been a total success
HOUSING AS POLITICAL DEVICE
for both tourism and business events, and the number of
By being the focus of discussion between two legally
visitors in the city increases every year. However, some
defined rights, housing becomes a political device. Both the
people are starting to perceive it as a threat. Here comes the
habitant and the investor cannot be seen as single entities
contradiction between the necessity of the tourism income
that act individually on each side of the understanding
–or business– and the way some people perceive that these
of the city, but as a network of complex relationships
activities are ‘killing’ the city. It is not only a matter of
between members that seek the same collective objective.
quantity, but also of distribution of the areas affected and
Both groups have their own spaces for meeting and social
the profits derived from it.
protocols: convention centres, business areas and districts
Interestingly, this raises another question: how much fluctuant population can a city handle without losing its identity? How populous can the ‘city of monuments’ be in relation to the ‘city of neighbours? As a natural process and
and mass media on the one hand and local communities and meeting spaces on the other. While economic interests are already organized within a top-down structure and are guided by professional kind of relationships, neighbour communities act on a completely different manner. The
191
neighbours of a certain area of the city span from strangers,
down approach has clearly proved to be obsolete nowadays
who only have in common the part of the city they live in,
as it has been unable to address the whole complexity of
to strongly bound communities that collaborate to defend
the city. In many occasions the reality of the built project
some claims or to protect themselves against what might be
proved to be very distant from what was planned. However,
perceived as threat: the more cohesive a community is, the
this is still the way the discipline is principally practiced. As
more organized it is even when there is no particular claim
an example, architecture schools still brief large masterplans
to make: just for the sake of the community itself, the sense
with large territorial consumptions as design exercises.
of belonging and the understanding on how beneficial is the
Instead, I would argue that the target of architects should
contact with one’s neighbours.
no longer be the territorial expansion but the improvement
Local communities, particularly when organized, play a determining role in the definition of the nature of a place by their active role in the shaping of the city, that fluctuates from single individual actions to major participative processes with administration. Here, once more the city cannot be understood as a physical element by itself but as an overlapping series of layers of information and figures who interact and condition each other. The physical space of the house gets a counterpart as a symbolic space. Some cities where the local communities have been expelled have changed their nature immediately, while apparently remaining physically unchanged. It is this sense of singularity of a particular area of the city given by its community –which paradoxically is what tourism wishes and what makes gentrification expansive – what clearly
of what is existing, in terms of sustainability, efficiency and identity. For this to happen it is necessary to address topics such as density, ecology or mobility. Thinking on the existing comprises the critical thinking of pre-existing architectures and urban forms on the one hand, and of existing local communities on the other. When a decision about a certain intervention in the city needs to be taken, local communities are hardly quantified. Nevertheless, they have an indispensable knowledge of the city that can certainly be useful to the technicians who design it: a knowledge that has been usually avoided by architects and that derives from the belonging to a place. With the complicity of local neighbours, the traditional architectural thinking and designing methods and strategies that the architects have usually had to address and design the city need to be reconsidered.
defines one’s behaviour in the city, sometimes even beyond legal regulations. Provided that the role of a local community in a city is accepted, it is necessary to consider how it interacts –if so– with the disciplines that have traditionally been in charge of the shaping of the city. The physical space is the result of political and social ideas; therefore it is under constant transformation due to the interests of different agents. It is necessary to enquiry how and by whom this process takes place. Traditionally, the planned city has been designed by engineers, architects and urban planners who wanted to achieve their ideal city. This could be created ex-novo or through an intervention in an existing urban pattern, but its authorship was usually attributed to a single person. This top-
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HOUSING AS CITY STRATEGY In Spain, until very recently, the architect was seen as a well-black-dressed man with leather shoes who smokes big cigars, drives expensive cars and is very busy in large and significant projects. Nowadays architects still wear black but have changed the suit for jeans and the shoes for trainers, and finally women are increasingly being included and recognised in the profession. However, what has not changed yet is the distant image that local communities have about the figure of the architect. Certainly, the broad access to university in the last decades has provoked a situation in which many more people know directly or indirectly one. Nevertheless, and depending on the forming school, the
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architect has probably been educated to ambition building
disciplines such as sociology, anthropology and economy
large projects and ideal cities. In other words, to design
among others. While top-down is an imposition, bottom-
physical autonomous objects that would have presumably a
up indicates a process of negotiation between the different
direct impact on the surroundings.
agents before, during and after the process of design.
The traditional top to bottom design process has
‘Inside-out’ refers specifically to housing: the city seen
lead into a paradoxical situation in many cities: as a result
from the room through the window. After many campaigns
of the interventions, the city improves and looks better, but
for embellishing the image of the city – ‘Barcelona get
as a consequence of looking better its value increases and
pretty’, in the 90s – it is necessary to consider the domestic
gentrification occurs. It has happened continuously that
space of the city as an intrinsic value. If cities are for living,
gentrification and speculation took place in neighbourhoods
and living occurs in the house -understood not only as
right after a public investment. From my point of view,
the single-family house but also as the space for relation
this process is a consequence of a methodology, in which
between the household and communal spaces- it seems logic
the local communities have been, at best, non-bindingly
that architects primarily address this topic. Once more, the
consulted. This premise is the starting point of what should
house is seen as a sign of identity and an expression of a way
be a whole reconsideration of the procurement process of
of living. In the current housing procurement, people are
housing in terms of who, how, for whom and under which
placed into houses that someone else has designed – from
conditions it happens. The first step to in this process is
the definition of the quantitative and qualitative standards
the interdisciplinary participation of other fields that have
to the layout itself – while the only decision the user can take
also been studying the city besides architecture. But more
at best is to choose between one or another, as if in a market.
important is to empower local communities in the process of
I would argue that the immense variety of plan layouts of
shaping the city. Thus, architecture as a process can become
single-family houses compared with the multi-storey ones
a tool to strengthen communities capable of defending their
relies in the fact that the inhabitant takes part on the design
interests in front of larger political or economic bodies that
process, much more than any other factor. Housing typology
are already well organized. It returns to the question of who
becomes then a consequence of a particular inhabitant,
takes the decisions and for whom. For this to happen, it is
household and community.
necessary to shift the disciplinary approach to a ‘bottom-up’ and ‘inside-out’ orientation.
The way in which architecture is built is a result of its methodology and the way it has been thought, which at
‘Bottom-up’ refers to look at the city from the eyes
the same time is bound with its means of representation. A
of the beholder instead than from the eyes of the satellite,
certain projective method requires a specific way of drawing,
and that the drawing –the physical limits of its architecture–
which reciprocally reverts to the method in the form of a
is not the starting point of the masterplan but the end of
tool that shapes the way of thinking. When representing
it. Hence, gathering the information that the city provides
architecture by any technique, it is assumed that the result
rather than the clarification of architect’s own ideas should
will be a fragmentary picture of a whole and more complex
be the starting point. This approach also includes the non-
reality. But drawing something is evidencing its importance,
academic knowledge acquired by those who have belong to it
as any language would do by providing a name to it. By
over time. If this know-how has been developed in a network
the fact of representing something, a degree of abstraction
– a community – it will prove to be much more complex and
is assumed through a conventional common language – a
useful. For that, it is indispensable the approach of other
line is only a line even though we read it as a wall, a door
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or a fence. This raises the question of how much of reality
as an asset. As the responsible of designing housing, the
can be, or selectively wants to be, represented. The evolution
architect is compelled to position himself in this debate. I
of depicting architecture has always tried to explore more
would argue that housing is primarily a representative space
sophisticated ways of rendering: from the abstraction of
for its inhabitants that should enable social relationships
the plan or the section, through the perspective and up
and is directly linked to the quality of a city. It is also a
to the computer assisted renders. However, the degree of
cultural heritage that forms the identity of a city as much as
abstraction implicit in the drawing has not been capable
monuments do. In order to underscore the importance of
of illustrating the house beyond its physicality, be these its
housing within the discipline and address its problems, it is
limits or the objects that occupy it and may suggest a certain
not enough to discuss about styles or architectonic grammar.
use or user. Architectural drawings have not been yet able
It is necessary instead to strategically re-evaluate the methods
to represent the complexity of living the house, such as the
that the discipline of architecture has historically used to
amount of activities that can be performed in the same space
address the problems of the city in terms of procedures,
at different times, the relationships between the users, the
participants and graphic representation.
links to the community, the changes on the architecture and the household over time, the relation with the history of the city and the culture of the place, etc. If a new methodology is to be implemented, it is also necessary to reconsider the traditional tools architects have used to represent – and ultimately think– architecture.
A shift on the methodology would have a repercussion on the way architecture is represented, as the way of drawing is strongly bound to a way of thinking, and would reciprocally have an impact on the methodology and ultimately the discipline of architecture.
While the form of the city shouldn’t be invariably repeated in different contexts, the strategies used to look at it can be a flexible methodology to approach particular conditions. This represents a shift from the past century, after which there is no need for large land-consuming masterplans. Instead, the priority should be to look at ways in which the existing cities can be improved in terms of sustainability, efficiency and identity. As this improvement refers ultimately to the living conditions, the physical shape of architecture must be a result of, and not an a priori in terms of design. Housing is the building typology that constitutes the vast majority of our cities, and is also a representative space for social interactions. Many times, it is also a lifetime project linked to personal life and aspirations. However, housing becomes a political issue by being disputed as a right and
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