Big cities, Big price tag?

Social housing has historically formed an integral part of new build investments, regeneration schemes and offerings of suitable housing for citizens. Housing issues take precedence across varied geographical contexts in Western Europe with the observable impact of the global financial crisis, worsening the case for the provision of affordable housing. On a global scale, national budgets for investing in housing schemes were drastically cut and still continue to decline. Communities have been deeply affected by this decline leading to evictions and relocations in order to make way for privatisation of the sector as historic housing complexes are knocked down to make way for ‘ivory tower’ apartment blocks as part of larger regeneration schemes; ‘yuppification’ and gentrification are a threat to many urban dwellers, now a familiar occurrence in urban centres. Affordable housing, some might argue, has had its heyday and in the not-so-distant past, exemplary schemes could be found in abundance in countries including the Netherlands, Germany, France and the United Kingdom.

Social housing policy expert and researcher Kathleen Scanlon points out that since the 1980s, in relation to social housing, “public expenditure pressures have increased, liberalisation and privatisation have become increasingly important and alternative tenures are now more readily available.” She further highlights how previously, “housing was seen as part of the social contract between government and citizens, which made up the welfare state in Central and Eastern Europe, a more corporatist approach was normal and housing more tied to the organisation of production and therefore accommodated workers and their dependants where required.”

Take Rotterdam’s The Kiefhoek for example, a working-class quarter built between 1928-1930, located in the southern part of the city and designed by Dutch architect, J.J.P. Oud. The scheme consists of 300 standardised dwellings of low-budget public housing, two round-cornered shops, a cubic ornament-less church, a hot-water station, playgrounds and small gardens that complete the estate as a densified but attractive collective community for workers and their families. Oud rejected the idea of a modern neighbourhood that was in keeping with the traditional concept of the street as an exterior room, thus designing elongated rows of standardised two-storey units that respond to their surroundings in different ways giving rise to a varied urban plan. Port Sunlight, on the other hand, located in the Northern British county Merseyside and built at the end of the 19th century, expanded social housing on a much larger scale turning it into a model village for workers employed at the nearby Lever factory. The Lever Brothers employed nearly 30 different architects to realise 800 contrasting family homes to house a population of 3,500 workers across 223 acres. The model village also included green spaces (allotments), institutions, recreation grounds and other open spaces. The brothers created a scheme for residents called Prosperity Sharing where rents paid by employees were capped at a level sufficient to cover upkeep and repair.

Sadly, bad planning occurs and large-scale developments often fall into crisis and disarray from time to time as observed with The Million Homes Programme in Sweden and Berlin’s Märkisches Viertel, the first large settlement in what used to be West Berlin. Both of these social housing projects suffered from a boom in the number of residents rising faster than available infrastructure – schools, kindergartens, shops, restaurants and better access to transport links turning them into undesirable areas for inhabitants and also places with stigmatised labelling.

Paris’s ‘Banlieues’ are well-known examples of satellite cities and the term is now used as a pejorative description for areas dominated by immigrants and colossal concrete housing projects. These developments were built during the post-war decades and originally conceived as utopias for the working city dweller; today they are in the news regularly for riots. In the UK, tower blocks including Balfron, Trellick and Shepherds Court shifted the image of apartment living to a point that it made sprawl seem the more suitable alternative to single family and terraced housing, which are catastrophic for dealing with population growth, CO2 emissions as well as traffic. This has contributed in the building of affordable housing coming to a halt in many countries, as it has in the Netherlands, the once top country for this initiative, with a liberal government that has abandoned the law that required 30% affordable housing in each new development.

The ongoing debate around the future of social housing in England is more active than it has been for many years. The demand for social housing and pressures on affordable housing in particular are intense and active. Previously, concerns grew over the concentration of social housing located in disadvantaged areas and about the low levels of economic activity found amongst tenants. Today, the situation is different, sharp price rises in London, Melbourne, Sydney, Paris, Amsterdam and Barcelona mean that blue-collar workers and even essential caretakers of the city such as policemen, nurses and fire-fighters cannot afford to live here anymore; populations have been relocated from existing urban social housing schemes to continue the city’s gentrification as observed with The Heygate Estate in London that was controversially sold off by Southwark Council, knocked down and the new development in its place sold to an overseas investor. The estate was once home to 3,000 people before being demolished in 2011.

If housing is not affordable it creates a dangerous situation for the future sustainability of our cities because they lack a diversity of workforce and services that might potentially lead to extreme political situations, as people have no more access to places that provide work. 

Social unrest arises through gentrification. Who can still afford to live in London, Berlin, Amsterdam or Paris? In Sydney, the average monthly mortgage repayment has increased significantly since 2001 (up 42% to $1800 across the city); an increase that has not been matched by income growth. Even affluent communities struggle to make the payments. In London, it is predicted that by 2020, first-time buyers will need to earn £64,000 per year to keep up with mortgage repayments, in a city where the annual average income of an experienced young professional is roughly £30,000.

In this way, social stability and safety are at stake and hence one might say that affordable housing is a state matter and cannot be left to the market and perhaps to avoid wasting money, public-private housing associations without profit as their main goal would be a suitable and strangely progressive step forward, considering that this is a solution from the past. But there is no perfect recipe on how to tackle this problem and the enormous challenge and pressures on creating affordable housing has grown so exponentially that one concrete solution is almost impossible, unless perhaps one takes a grand and ambitious overhaul like Sweden did in the 1960s. But look how that ended up. At present, there is so much distrust in an over caring nanny state that this would be improbable. Perhaps a possible solution then is to set the goal in quality and to set up a combination of different small and large-scale private-public but non-profit initiatives regulated through a national or municipal coordinator to facilitate the necessary building constructions. Here are some examples:

Inclusive Mix

If a mandatory inclusion of a proportion of affordable housing into larger developmental projects in the city is introduced, this allows for integration rather than separation of users, as opposed to separating residents.
In Parkrand, 35 social apartments were ‘gentrified’ and interwoven into the larger mass of 240 apartments so that inhabitants behaved cordially and under the watch of a concierge. 

In Silodam, residents didn’t share communal stairs so, as an alternative, the social flats all received fabulous bridges to townhouse style entrances that separated the commercial and affordable inhabitants but didn’t alienate and exclude residents of the affordable accommodations. 

Also, in Silodam, elderly tenants lived inside communities and shared communal entrances, which allowed for unity. In London, the number of newly built homes has increased 6% in the past year and if a percentage is allocated for affordable units, these problems would subside drastically.

Subsidies

City councils and developers must work together to create solutions to demands for and costs incurred in new housing developments. In our master plan for Bordeaux Bastide Niel, the city allocates land use to developers for less cost with the objective for them to provide rental houses at a certain percentage that is below the market value or to sell them to people within a certain profile (services, longer lasting low incomes). This, of course, comes at a price, but in this model, the city has no investment, dictates the conditions, but has less profit income. On the bright side, it provides homes for the young, professionals and families. Mirador and Celosia in Madrid are two examples of such subsidized housing. The problem here, however, was that due to demand, the waiting list did not allow people to refuse without penalty, so this demand meant the architect had to build for as large a group as possible.

Ditch the Developer

In a classic case of foregoing or doing away with the developer, an urban plan was designed in Leiden, Netherlands, of 670 dwellings with half of its new housing developed within the framework of private client agreements and the rest as social housing. The urban plan set out strict parameters to ensure the relative cohesive context of the urban grid, but at the same time offered enough flexibility for consumer-driven developments. MVRDV engaged for 10 years in the project and people were able to build their own individual homes on a communal parking garage, helped and guided by the city.

Small Scale

Instead of colossal scale developments such as The Million Programme, it would also be possible to develop many smaller initiatives within different parts of a city to avoid the ghettoization of certain areas and diversify the inhabitants that will form these new communal dwellings. In Spijkenisse town centre, 42 apartments were designed that feature 27 different housing types to create a micro-neighbourhood for lower income individuals, but at the same time also create a fantastic demographic mix of senior citizens, small and large families and younger citizens. Just imagine hundreds of these projects to be realised every year; it would lead to a multitude of housing types and a varied and specific urban area.

Customised Mass Housing

Affordable housing needs to be cheaply produced, so mass fabrication is crucial and logical. In Ypenburg we made a neighbourhood with around 900 homes in groups of eight to 120 units that each had a totally different character. The setback-terraced housing provided a neighbourhood for families with kids overlooking each other’s garden for perfect social control. The precision of how this project fosters different lifestyles makes it highly successful.

Building Communities

Almere Oosterwold is an example of how a city saves money by not providing services and how individuals and groups get the chance to realise their homes without a developer, who would make it more expensive. This only works, however, for well-organised citizens who make decisions about how they live through constant democratic decisions and continued dialogue.

New Software

MVRDV has been on a quest to bring the suburban qualities of light, individualism and green outdoor space into apartment living, from the very first project to the latest: Ravel Plaza, a high-end apartment in Amsterdam’s Zuidas district. The current software advances will make it feasible to realise fully customised flats for sale. This software can be used by collective private initiatives to make the now often slow and emotional process fast and efficient. The development corporation and its 30% profit margin can be avoided. Obviously, there is a maximum size to this and developers act as risk takers making more reliable partners for cities.

Conclusion

All of what is suggested above demonstrates that a combination of approaches is required to solve the larger issues of social housing. This calls for an ongoing exploration of architecture as both a critical and practical response to our spatial, social and environmental crisis that needs to be in the form of a series of locally specific, tailor-made solutions. It is evident that the housing issue is more critical than it has ever been before. Housing shortages continue to rise and populist parties thrive on social exclusion and problems in society. Architects, designers and urbanists must then focus on changes of behaviour, technology, territory or look for options to extend. We need to stimulate a change in attitudes worldwide by providing exemplary solutions, inspiring others and sharing knowledge, to contribute to understanding, testing and providing progressive responses. Let’s find ways to provide more affordable homes.