The Enabler Architect: Social Housing Through a Spectrum of Participation

Social housing refers to low-income housing projects provided or subsidized by the state. This paper explores an approach for the design and conception of social housing incorporating open building, self-help, and participatory design aimed toward providing user autonomy. Moreover, it addresses the current role of the architect in the field. The study developed a theoretical analysis using two research methods: logical argumentation and case studies. Two representative projects from architects that have globally impacted the housing discourse serve as case studies for investigation: Maison Dom-Ino (1914) by Le Corbusier and Quinta Monroy (2003) by Alejandro Aravena. The selection of the architects and their projects observed their influence on critical changes in social housing discourse. These changes occurred approximately every thirty years under a timeframe from 1914 to the present time. These architects appear in literature as essential figures whose ideas, theories, and projects historically influenced social housing production worldwide. The case studies’ examination followed two structured phases. Phase one focused on constructing each project’s “macro” picture, creating a matrix of categories and distributing the evidence amongst them, investigating the following aspects: historical context, site context, and architectural theory. Phase two concentrated on composing the “micro” picture: developing a project analysis and evaluating architectural drawings and other artifacts through a soft & hard scale system, generating data displays that measured each case study’s performance under a participation spectrum. Findings show the frame as a persistent element amongst the case studies that can serve as a vessel encompassing open building, self-help, and participatory design. Furthermore, the results suggest that architects must act as enablers, users as collaborators, and the frame as their mediator, composing three forces acting within the social housing design.

https://doi.org/10.35483/ACSA.Teach.2023.17

Volume Editors
Massimo Santanicchia

ISBN
978-1-944214-44-9