Transforming the built environment to accommodate low-income segments of the population

Abstract

Paper presented at the XXXIII IAHS World Congress on Housing, 27-30 September 2005,"Transforming Housing Environments through Design", University of Pretoria.

After radical political and economical changes in the country, denationalisation, social differentiation and ruthless capitalism caused an increased population of low-income families, single parent families and homeless people. They have been faced with a massive lack of available low-cost accommodation. The paper describes the development of three different projects during the last twenty years. They had different starting points and suffered different destinies. An effort to transform a listed industrial building to accommodate homeless and low-income families did not succeed as it was found too expensive. A single workers dormitory however, has been transformed quite satisfactorily into rental flats of moderate standard. An ambitious local housing authority project to eliminate squatter settlement has been modified in the middle of the construction process to offer starting homes for young couples and professionals. These three examples represent only a small part of the overall continuos process of changes and transformations of built environments, spontaneous or organised. In a way it may be recognised as a sort of recycling of not only materials, but also of sites and buildings.