PRE-SESSIONAL COURSE: STAGE 5 EAP Pathway

A comparison of th socia! ho"sin# in $ra%i! an& th Unit& 'in#&om

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+y!!na +i!iann Si!,a +!o
5th Sptm*r -./0
S"pr,isor: Sarah Spa!ton
1c!aration
The work contained in this project is my own and has not been submitted for
any other qualifcation.
All sentences and passages quoted from published sources have been
specifcally acknowledged by referencing to author, work and page(s.
Nam! "yllena "iliann #ilva "elo
Si#nat"r!
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#eptember %&'(
)ne would e*pect there to be many di+erences in social housing between
,ra-il and .nited /ingdom. #ocial 0ousing in this essay is understood as a
type of housing for the lower income families whose level of income hinders
or prevents access to housing through the normal mechanisms of the real
estate market and it is owned by local authorities. This paper will investigate
the similarities and di+erences in ,ra-il and .nited /ingdom and highlight
them and will focus on the period that comes from '12&, where the frst
concerns about that emerged, to nowadays.
A comparison of th socia! ho"sin# in $ra%i! an& th Unit& 'in#&om
A timeline in social housing between ,ra-il and .nited /ingdom is useful
mainly because of the distinct type of development, which these two nations
have, and also can give the capability to make some parallels and highlight
di+erences.
The frst one began to develop programs for social housing in '12( when
,ra-il was under a military regime dictatorship intended to legitimi-e its
power by gaining the approval of the great mass of the population victim of
the housing defcit. 3n the other hand the .nited /ingdom as a democracy,
had a state involvement in the provision of housing starts in the late
nineteenth century4 ("anoochehri, p. 5, %&'%. After that, just by the '12&s
the provision of housing took place in states hands, 4this process was
reversed and, in '166, local authorities were e*cluded from the development
of social housing, with their role e+ectively passed on to housing
associations7 ("anoochehri, p. 5, %&'%.
8owadays, ,ra-il still remains strictly under government associations
regulations, such as "inistry of 9ities and 9A3:A (;ederal #aving ,ank,
whereas for constrast, 4#ocial housing in the ./ is now roughly evenly split
between <<council housing== that is owned by city authorities, and homes let
by not>for>proft housing associations, some of which own tens of thousands
of dwellings spread across the country4 (;enton et al., p. 5?(, %&'%.
;or both of these countries, there was a fne line between the shortage of
housing and the quality of project developing, which must consider
characteristics such as! 4population si-e and structure, the general standard
of living, the distribution of incomes, @...A the cost of construction and the
prevailing rate of interest, rent and subsidy policyB and so on4 (9ullingworth,
'116, p. :i.A further instance of this is that the production of social housing
in ,ra-il, since the beginning of this system, consisted in copies of reduced
construction standards, and it is allocated in areas of low levels of
constructability. This lower standard is because the institutions, which are
responsible for the production of housing in the country, did not fnd the
equation between the three main factors that regulated the housing system!
quality, quantity and fnancial limits. Cven with beginning of democratic
governments in ,ra-il and the social housing programs have succeeded
without raising the building standard in order to solve the quantitative and
not qualitative shortage. #imilarly to ,ra-il, the .nited /ingdom was focused
on provides Dgreater number of units becomes such a priority that quality
begins to view as a lu*ury ("anoochehri, p.(5, '1167.
At this time, we observe that, while in ,ra-il the focus of production sought
to fll the quantitative shortage of housing, in the .nited /ingdom, as /ing
(%&&6 emphasi-es that are at the present two dominant themes in housing
policy in the ./, which are choice and a+ordability. 9hoice means that the
applicant will be at centre of 4decision>making process4 (3bid, where house
will meet the particular needs of each family profle. These trends come from
the DEecent 0omes #tandard7 that is a target stablished by the government
in %&&& to obligate the improvement of ./ social housing system.
This process of increasing options to the applicants does not occur on
,ra-ilian standard, where the families just enter into the process after the
end of the project process, and most of the times does not correspond to the
real need of the benefted family. A good illustration of this is that usually in
,ra-il the families are placed into houses that cannot respond to the profle
family, for e*ample, a family with four children is placed in a house with two
rooms or a person that carries special needs is placed in a house not
accessible.
Apart from this, in common, in terms of site location of this housing projects
there is a process of gentrifcation occurring in most of cities of these
countries due to market prices on land, which bring about a hori-ontal sprawl
of to the fringes of the city. Also, raises an issues in tangible e*cessive
spending of public money to bring infrastructure to these areas and as a
report from 0abitat for the Flanet highlight! 4There is a suGcient amount of
evidence that, due to the lack of security that normally e*ists in middle to
upper income real estate developments, hori-ontal low income housing
condominiums are eventually transforming into 4legalised4 favelas4 (3bid.
"oreover, 4there very rarely e*ists any form of community spirit owed to the
lack of services focused on social well>being and other related amenities4
(ibid. A good e*ample for this gentrifcation process is Hondon, where 4was a
clearly rapid growth in the total of non>poor population @IA or to the
migration of poor households outwards from 3nner Hondon in response to the
unavailability of housing there (;enton et al., %&'%.
At this point of the discussion, it is notable that the most signifcant
di+erence between ,ra-il and .nited /ingdom is architectural. ,elow, is
possible to visuali-e these signifcant di+erences as illustrated in fgures '
and %. These two e*amples were chosen purposeful, because it also
assimilates into architectural conformation. 0owever, mainly show that even
a very similar conformation may give rise to a design that directly answer to
the problem.
3n ,ra-il (;igure ', for e*ample, the fgure shows various social housing
projects that have the same conformation, even they were constructed in
di+erent parts of the country and came from a governmental programme
called 4"inha 9asa "inha Jida4. That despite being ffty years ahead of the
frst government initiatives in the feld of housing made little progress in
addressing the issues of welfare, quality and social justice for lower income
families.
Thus 4the materials used for the construction @IA and related infrastructure
are generally of inferior quality4 (#elvanayagam, %&'(, and typically is
ceramic brick, which is a very widespread material in ,ra-il, despite its high
cost, it has the disadvantage of requiring a long time for completion of the
buildingB it is common to use wood structure as well and complements such
as burnt cement, which has little durability compared to other materials. 3t is
important, also, describing that 4)wed to the rigorous control of costs,
development plans rarely incorporate practices and installations that respect
the environment4 (idem. The fgure also shows the type of site location most
common for this programme.
)n the other hand, the e*ample that comes along to e*alt this di+erence,
comes from Hondon (;igure %. 3t is made with the aim of providing Da truly
a+ordable move>on scheme for our residents, which didn=t require a grant to
build @IA4 says Andy Kedfearn of the L"9A in interview for The Muardian. 3t
presented a dry construction system and prefabricated in wood, where each
part of the house fts in perfectly with only two other types of screws. Also, it
presents a structure that can support up to eight Noors. According to the
creators, costs (&O less than the conventional buildings.
2i#"r / - +inha Casa +inha 3i&a - Gnra! Arran#mnt4
2i#"r -: Pr-2a* 5-C"* - Richar& Ro#rs
3n summary from that point, it is uncertain if there are more di+erences than
similarities that can be traced between these two standards. 3t is notable
that there are some common trends in policy, even with the di+erences in
types of institutions that command the process of social housing and also a
change of people to the suburbs due to intensive control the real estate
market on the value of land.
Phile in recent decades in architectural terms the projective proposals for
social housing remain doomed to ineGciency, ./ has developed projects
that promote a more accurate use of resources and resolves the most urgent
way the housing crisis by which traverses.
3t should be noted that this essay presents some limitations, such as housing
policies of both countries have not been studied in depth, and presented
projects have not been investigated in more than one source, which leads to
not generali-e the information presented here.
Phat it is predictable is this overview is very likely that the patterns of
constructability of ,ra-il remained the same, unless if the federal
government does not enter architects with real decision>making power and
able to make decisions in the short term to alleviate this situation. 0owever,
for both countries, a balance between quality and aspirations of users are
achieved, it would be a very signifcant result.
$i*!io#raphy
,onates, ". ;. Q JalenRa, ". "., %&&1. The trajectory of social housing policy
in ,ra-il! ;rom the 8ational 0ousing ,ank to the "inistry of the 9ities.
Elsevier , pp. '2$>'?5.
9ullingworth, S. ,., '116 . Housing Need and Planning Policy. %nd ed. Hondon!
Koutledge.
;enton, A., Hupton, K., Arrundale, A. Q Tunstall, K., %&'%. Fublic housing,
commodifcation, and rights to the city! The .# and Cngland compared.
Elsevier, pp. 5?5>5?6.
Mipe, A., %&'(. Archdaily. @)nlineA
Available at! http!TTwww.archdaily.comT(6'&51Trichard>rogers>pre>fab>y>cube>
takes>on>uk>housing>crisisT
@Accessed %$ August %&'(A.
/ing, F., 3CA > Cconomic A+airs. 8o choice ! Keforming #ocial 0ousing in
Cngland. iea - , Jolume Sune %&&6, pp. 5?>('.
"anoochehri, S., %&'%. Politics of Social Housing in Britain. )*ford! Feter
Hang.
#elvanayagam, K., %&'(. Habitation for the planet. @)nlineA
Available at! http!TTwww.habitationfortheplanet.orgTblogT%&'%T&$Tbra-il>
a+ordable>housing>strategy>weakT
@Accessed 5' August %&'(A.
Painwright, )., %&'(. The uardian. @)nlineA
Available at! http!TTwww.theguardian.comTartanddesignTarchitecture>design>
blogT%&'(TfebT'(Trichard>rogers>and>ymca>unveil>5&k>Natpack>homes>for>
homeless>people
@Accessed 5' August %&'(A.