New solutions for the future of social housing

Having discussed how human biology determines to a large extent how people interact with their surroundings (Kellert et al., 2008), we introduced an approach to designing the built environment that establishes a positive connection with the user. At the same time, we exposed the usual planning and architectural methodologies as being responsible for disconnection. Unbelievable as this might seem, design and construction the world over have not been applying typologies that guarantee user wellbeing, despite known results on how to achieve this. Our first papers in this series, therefore, summarized available knowledge into a practical framework for helping users participate in designing their living environments. Even in those cases where user participation is limited or even excluded, we still insist that design must be based upon universally shared principles. Otherwise, the built environment will always be perceived as hostile to life. 

The challenge we face in reforming the practice of building cities is enormous, and the solutions will involve many different innovative mechanisms. At present, there is no individual responsible for guaranteeing the social/psychological adaptability of built urban fabric; therefore we introduce the need for such. One cannot leave this task up to the government, or the contractor, or even the architect, for the simple reason that they are not trained to do the job and, in addition, have conflicting interests that prevent them from performing this duty. 

Another point concerns the use of “friendly” materials. This is not an aesthetic choice, but goes to the heart of whether a built structure will be perceived as “friendly” on the basis of its biophilic properties (Kellert et al., 2008). People have accepted a certain very peculiar industrial aesthetic that dictates the use of high-tech materials, even in situations where those are both psychologically hostile and terribly expensive. But, because of ideological resistance, this practice is never questioned. 

The same ideological straitjacket has prevented the use of urban and building patterns developed over generations of human civilization, and thus optimally adapted to life (Alexander et al., 1977; Salingaros, 2005). The price of ideological fanaticism is urban disaster, which we hope to reverse through education. We discuss how to adapt mass-production to individual local needs, abandoning the crude early 20C models of industrial production so beloved by both academic architects and industry. Users rapidly destroy permanent urban solutions that are perceived as inhuman (according to Biophilia, not from personal opinion), whereas living urban fabric built out of cheaper materials lasts for generations because it is being continually re-generated. Here money flow is crucial, and we emphasize the focus on the smaller scales. Regeneration relies upon the free availability of numerous small-scale expenditures, but this mechanism is blocked by the concentration of money into single sources. 

Finally, any scheme for building new cities and repairing existing ones must work within the confines of existing legal and administrative systems. We touch upon the multiple complex issues that need to be worked out, encouraging compromise whenever possible yet identifying those points where compromise is ruinous to the result. The legal foundation of ownership, funding, contractors, etc. needs to be re-thought, and, following Christopher Alexander (Alexander, 2001-2005), we have made some first steps in this direction. Cutting through bureaucracy requires the government’s cooperation, which should first be convinced of the potential for drastic improvements over existing practice with only minor changes. 

The Role of the Architect/Coordinator

Our experience with construction projects leads us to propose an administrative rule. That is to make a single individual responsible for achieving the “humanity” of an individual project. The government or non-governmental agency funding the project will appoint this person, who will oversee the design and construction, and will coordinate user participation. We suggest that this task not be delegated to an existing employee of the government bureaucracy, or to an employee of a construction company, for the simple reason that such persons don’t have the necessary expertise in the design process we are advocating. Ideally, it should be a person who has a professional understanding of these issues, and who has an independent professional sense of responsibility to oversee their proper implementation.

This architect/project manager will be responsible for making the difference between creating a military/industrial appearance, versus a human, living feeling in the final project as built. Again, this is not a matter of aesthetics (which would be immediately dismissed by the funding agency as irrelevant to poor people) but of basic survival. A project perceived by its inhabitants as hostile will eventually be destroyed by them, and in the meantime destroys their own sense of self. 

As much as we believe in collaboration, it has been shown that people in need of social housing don’t always have the organizational capacity to work together to get the project done. Their input is absolutely necessary in the planning stages, but here we are talking about someone on the “outside” who will be responsible to the residents, and who will carry the responsibility of insuring their wellbeing when pressured to cut costs and streamline the construction process.

A crucial part of the role of the project manager has to be defined in terms of multi-layered facilitation of the process. The project manager will often need not only to encourage engagement, but also to teach it to people who are not used to it, and who may lack the habits and skills of effective participatory action. Participants may come to the process with a deep distrust of any method that relies on the efforts of others. Part of the challenge in a new settlement, therefore, will be to create an orderly, reliable, and effective collaborative process that can engage a population — but such people may well be traumatized as the result of prior dislocations and social upheavals. One cannot assume that a pre-existing community will have already established the necessary norms and commitments required for such engagement. The project manager’s role will inevitably involve a certain amount of what is commonly called “community building”, organizing, and leadership training. 

When the project is complete, the architect/project manager should get a fee for his/her job, adjusted to the degree that it is well done. Resident feedback rather than declarations by architectural critics should be used as a basis for judging this success. It is not unlikely that a project will prove to be sustainable and successful for decades to come, but will be condemned by narrow-minded ideologues as looking “old-fashioned”, or as resembling a favela too closely for political comfort. Many people in power have fixed visual notions of what a “clean, industrial, modern” city ought to look like — based on outmoded and irrelevant scientific concepts — and refer back to those utopian images when judging a living environment.

We are in fact advocating a bottom-up social approach with a strictly top-down intermediate administrative level. Unless a clear responsibility and autonomous administrative system is laid down, what we wish to see accomplished will never get done. The impersonal government bureaucracy will never take the trouble to make a place human and livable; it can more easily just follow uncreative rules of modularity and mechanical combination. The construction group is not responsible: it wants to finish its job in the minimum time and make the least number of adjustments. The residents are not politically powerful to guarantee a livable environment. Within the realities of construction, a project requires an advocate with the power to coordinate all of these forces.