Coding Engines in Participatory Social Housing Design—A Case to Revisit Pattern Languages

Viktor Bukovszki,András Reith,Gabriella Dóci

doi:10.3390/su13063367

Viktor Bukovszki, András Reith + Show 1 more

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https://doi.org/10.3390/su13063367

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Abstract

Participation has been touted as a critical instrument for both citizen empowerment and responsibility-sharing in sustainability. In architecture, participation allows for the progression of green building to sustainable habitation that integrates environmental, economic, and social dimensions. However, participation in practice rarely delegates meaningful decisions to marginalized groups and is mostly a one-sided process. This study seeks to investigate which factors of the participatory method afford both empowerment and behavioral change to a sustainable lifestyle in low-income groups. To do so, a case study of designing a social housing estate in Hungary is presented, where participatory design was used to codevelop a building that considers and adjusts to the sustainable lifestyle envisioned by the future residents. A coding engine based on the concept of pattern languages was developed that places conditions and experience of everyday activities at the center of design, translating them to spatial features. As a result, a focus group of social housing tenants and cohousing experts were able to define explicit shared spaces, allocate square meters to them, and articulate legible design criteria. Of the early-stage design decisions, 45% were made with or by the participants, and the bilateral process made it possible to convince the tenants to adopt a more sustainable habitation format.

Highlights

IntroductionGreen architecture has evolved in the past few decades from a purely technical drive targeting the environmental footprint of buildings to an interdisciplinary one addressing environmental and socioeconomic interlinkages
Of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions are attributed to households and residential buildings [4,5]
The results are presented as follows: Section 3.1 describes the nexus of action, meaning the context of activities in which space-sharing could be relevant; Section 3.2 analyzes the conditions and conflicts when these activities are shared and reaches a final list of approved shared spaces based on that; Section 3.3 describes design decisions made directly by the focus group; and Section

Summary

Introduction

Green architecture has evolved in the past few decades from a purely technical drive targeting the environmental footprint of buildings to an interdisciplinary one addressing environmental and socioeconomic interlinkages. In the EU, 36.1% of households at risk of poverty (roughly 10% of all households) spend more than 40% of their disposable income on housing-related costs, driving housing high on the agenda of every member state [8]. These environmental and socioeconomic dimensions overlap due to discrepancies in access to environmental resources, vulnerability to climate variability, and higher exposure to its negative impacts [3].

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