RETHINK HOUSING FOR THE POOR 1

Rethink Housing for the Poor

Dungarwal Smit

VIT’s PVPCOA, Pune

04-19-2021
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Rethink Housing for the Poor

Social housing is any rental housing that may be owned and managed by the state, by

non-profit organizations, or by a combination of the two, usually to provide affordable

housing. Providing an affordable house is the major challenge faced today in the developing

world. Social housing replaces and takes center stage in the international and national agenda

all over the world. As housing is considered a basic need, governments at all levels are

discussing ways to provide housing for their people as a house is not only a structure with

four walls but it develops a social and cultural transformation by providing a better living.

Social housing plays such an important part in life, along with comes the analysis of housing

to improve the quality of life in every place required. Due to continuous urban sprawl, there

is growth in the urban population which increases the demand for social housing, but due to

shortages of land and housing and congested mobility, there is pressure on basic things such

as water, energy, and lung space. Even demand has increased due to the growth in income of

the middle class, which demands affordable houses with all basic amenities. The article

mainly focuses on the difficulties faced during and before construction of social housing

concerning land, cost of construction, people involved in construction, government bylaws,

location, basic needs, etc, and article also focuses on the major reasons for the failure of any

social/public housing along with some strategies that make social housing livable and

adaptable place for poor.

Issues faced in building the social housing

Land availability is one of the major issues faced due to overpopulation, rapid urbanization,

poorly thought-out regulations, and land acquisition leading to illegal encroachments and an

increase in the cost of land. As social housing requires land at affordable rates leading to
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nearing the periphery of the city which removes the low-income group from sources of

employment and close family and social ties within their neighborhoods, it should also be

close enough to public facilities, such as schools, health clinics, and a police station and there

should be links to public transport. Often, housing projects fail because houses are built miles

away from the city center, without a good transportation facility.

Rising costs of land and construction, building material, and even labors have risen. For a

person living in slums, it is very difficult to earn the total amount of money that is required

for a house and many of them do not even have income proof to apply for a loan. Even

affordability of a house also includes all the basic services that include utility, electricity, gas,

water, security, etc, many times these services bills are too high, higher than their monthly

wages and the tenets are not able to pay them, we need to consider people coming from slums

are not used to pay these bills and they often do not set money aside for this purpose.

The use of materials and planning should be suitable for the area that enables the

expression of cultural identity. Many times a standard form of social housing is built which is

not suitable with climate and people avoid using it and becomes the reason for its failure,

even people have traditional and cultural wishes that must be taken into consideration when

designing a housing program.

Regulatory constraints are developed as a project can take several years for its sanction and

need to be cleared by as many as forty departments across the national and sub-national

levels, including the environment, fire, revenue, and water departments, the traffic police, and

so on. There is a lack of transparent and clear regulation, bye-laws often lack clarity and there

are overlapping guidelines, which further delays the project as well as increases the cost.

Involvement of community in any housing project is never seen, as the government feels like

it is their responsibility to come up with solutions and provide housing to them, we can see

the cycle in which government tries to provide housing but they do not work and they do not
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understand why, people go to the housing and sell off the material like windows, washbasin,

etc and return to slums as community thinks that they are forced to live in houses which are

not suitable for them. Involving the community can give the best solutions to social housing

as they know the problems and the best possible solutions to them.

Reasons due to which monumental housing suddenly become one of the most prominent

architectural loopholes in the housing history

After World War II, the homeless population surged throughout leading to the rapid increase

in slums. Therefore, the government decided to fund the mass-production of public housing

to get people out of inhumane conditions. At the same time architect’s wanted to establish

themself as an individual and quite of an artist and get themselves publicized in the media,

and started to build the monumental building that stands out, everything breeds grandeur and

solidity but along with identity it also creates horrid satellite towns.

Les Espaces d'Abraxas social housing was built in 1982 in Marne La Vallee, Region of Paris,

France by Ar.Ricardo Bofill. Housing consists of 130 apartments with a very grand large

open community space in the center for the

public to interact and form a community for

their betterment but after few years of

construction it was left lifeless as people thought

the open space was not the part of their

belongings and no one looked after it, one of the

reasons for the project to fail was architect

concentrated more on the exterior facade, sheer scale, and central open space and the interior

spaces as they were not sufficient enough to fulfill their requirements, another reason for the

failure of the project was it lacked in sense security as there were many entry and exit points

without any checkpoints and due to sheer scale, there were many negative spaces that led to
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social ills, the project also failed because it lacked a sense of community without shops and

facilities, and the theory of economic and social integration was not followed through.

Furthermore, even aesthetic and cultural vision was not extended to other projects in town

and it became an eyesore.

Les Arcades du Lac. Le Viaduc a Social housing by Ricardo Bofill built in 1982 at

Saint-Quentin-En-Yvelines,Paris,France.Housing

consists of 389 apartments arranged in a pattern like

a french garden with the street and the square, the

street as the place of circulation, and the square as

the place for meetings and get-together, it also had

underground car parking which connected all

buildings. Architect concentrated more on the exterior facade and the surrounding the

building, but providing monumental housing or castles to the Poor's with a lake on the side

aren't going to satisfy their requirements nor is it going to bring any change in their life's,

even the overwhelming scale is oppressive and does not build a relationship between

inhabitants and the building nor the large central open spaces did, people wish to have a place

with private courtyards and space which they can connect with, places which can satisfy their

requirements and not the building that is desired to advertise. This type of social housing fails

because they lose the connectivity between space and the user. One of the reasons for its

failure was tenants were not able to pay the rents and it got very difficult to maintain them.

Another major reason for its failure was its location as it was located at the periphery of the

city it was very difficult to travel such a long distance for their daily wages.

Cabrini-Green Public Housing, consisting of 23 towers, was built between 1950 and 1962. As

there was continuous migration Chicago became a hope for everyone as Cabrini-Green Public

Housing provided 3,000 apartments but soon buildings became slums itself, due to the high
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demand for low-cost housing it was very essential to cut down the cost of the materials that

resulted in cheap quality material used during construction started to deteriorate very fast,

even due to some social issues within the country, people deny paying the maintenance funds

and deterioration of building furthers. It started to become a place for the drought of all kinds

of crime due to dark stairwells and neglected conditions. All kinds of social ills spread in

complex and open public spaces and dark corridors were taken by gangs and drug dealers.

Dark stairwells were the unsafest places in this public housing project yet impossible to avoid

due to regularly malfunctioning elevators.

Housing schemes in Faridabad housing complex for metalworkers were built under Huda’s

Ashiana housing scheme with 3080 apartments but failed to attract even a single occupant

even though it offered 600 sq. ft apartment for free. Reasons people did not want to shift as it

was a bit away from their place of work and if they shift to the new housing they had to pay

for heavy bills for electricity, water, gas, etc which till date they used for free or at heavy

subsidies. Social housing can serve better if we can focus on developing the slums at the

same place and do not look for large-scale housing but housing that can connect people with

their surroundings and form a community.

Learning from good social housing

Social housing like Elemental social housing came up

with an innovative concept of providing a good half

house that fulfills the basic requirement of

low-income housing instead of a small furnished

house which in the future can be developed and

allowed by an individual to expand the rest. Basics

like the first floor are made up of raw concrete and

the second is covered with unfinished plywood, provision of only one sink in the entire
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kitchen with no other appliances combined makes it cheap but things like plumbing,

electrification, concreting, etc are done and the house is well insulated. It also provides a

manual to individuals so that he/she can expand the house with basic materials and still can

resist earthquakes and floods. The house has a balance between low-rise high density, rather

than reducing the size of housing units to accommodate more people. It provides safe,

affordable housing with all necessities for every family. Even it has a collective space

between the streets and the private, not much huge so that social agreements can be

maintained. One of the major reasons people live in such houses is that the government pays

all the necessary taxes like roads, drainage, sewage, transportation, etc and focuses on

building a community instead of housing for them.

Social housing like Le Lorrain – Brussels, Belgium is built on industrial land which was

entirely built, housing is built by clearing and opening the interior of the plot, and streets are

made to breathe. The housing is designed as per the requirements of the people including

different typologies complex that consists of a multi-unit apartment building and three

terraced maisonette homes, each of which has its private garden and a buffer space from a

public space to the front door which creates a sense of ownership of a house. Even a large

circulation space is carved within the site so that it acts like a gathering space as well as a

space to play around. Materials also play a very important role in housing according to

climate and here timber is used to give a warm feeling in the interiors whereas on the external

facade it is cladded with grey metallic sheets as it is constructed on industrial land. Initial

there were high walls on the eastern side of the site but later for better light quality they were

lowered down, and the complex has a large, open communal space for residents to use.
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Project by Ar. BV Doshi, Aranya social housing was

started with a concept of involving people during

construction and use of local material for construction

which completely response to climate and even it made the

project economical, housing was designed in a compact

way but was flexible enough to be modified as per

individual to accommodate many generations as well as it

can be used for business purpose. Each house is designed

with a small courtyard and stairs connecting two buildings

to form a community. Architect had tried to create places

where even a thin line between commercial and personal

space is blurred, where people of different backgrounds

and income levels can live together.

Incremental Housing, Belapur, Navi Mumbai by Ar. Charles Correa is a perfect example of

accommodating high densities in low-rise courtyard homes

with no sharing wall for future expansion. Considering

Mumbai climate every house has a private courtyard that is

directly connected to the central public space of 8m x 8m

which even helps to form a community. Planning of

housing was done discussing along with the people who are

going to live so that it can cater to the problems they were

facing. Incremental Housing was not just designed for the

current situation but it also thought about the future and

free-standing structures were built so that every individual

can modify his house as per his need in the future.

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Similarly, many social housing projects like 1) ATIRA Staff Housing, Ahmadabad, 2)

CIDCO Housing, Parsik Hill, Belapur, 3) LIC Housing, Ahmadabad, 4) Tara Housing, Delhi,

etc have tried to build a community in themselves.

We need to think and try to involve the user i.e. the people/ community who are going to live,

in the designing of housing. They may help us encounter many problems that lead to housing

failure. Instead of going high and providing large courtyards, dark long staircases, long

corridors, negative spaces which can lead to social ills. We need to understand the climate

and design as per the climate where natural light and ventilation plays a major role so that

tenants did not need to pay more for electricity, we also need to understand their past living

and the kind of work they perform to come up with the spaces they need and housing can

fulfill their requirements, we need to learn how we can accommodate high density in low rise

with open stairs which become a community space and visually connects smaller courtyards

for interaction that can help them form a community. We also need to look into spaces that

can help them exchange their knowledge and create places where the borders between

commercial and personal space get blurred and space helps them grow as individuals, we

should try building a community instead of a residence. Design is never what it looks like and

feels like, Design is always how it works.

“A building’s real destiny is in its usage and not in design “

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