The spatial comfort of social housing units in the post-socialist period in Serbia in relation to the applicable architectural norms

Abstract

The national economic and political conditions of a country inevitably affect the development of its social housing sector. However, in order to prevent social exclusion, the quality of social housing has to at least be similar to the national average quality. As the practice of social housing in Serbia is still in its early stages, and the norms for this type of housing have only applied since 2013, this research strives to influence the formation of a more complete basis for the development of contemporary social housing models in Serbia, with the aim of improving the quality of social housing and achieving the prevailing housing quality in the country. A comparative analysis of the norms defined for social housing and those defined for market housing, as well as the results from the last census concerning the average housing area per member in Serbia, were used to define the position of social housing in comparison to other types of housing in the country. The analysis pointed out that the spatial comfort of social housing units is lower than other forms of housing in the country. In addition to which the unit area and the individual rooms are inadequately defined by the current social housing standard. The second part of the research, which is based on relevant architectural recommendations regarding the functional minimum regarding spatial comfort of the apartment units, aims to point out the necessary minimum of the housing space. The results of this research define recommendations for the minimum spatial comfort of social housing units: 1) the minimum floor area per member; and 2) the minimum floor area and width of the individual rooms.