Housing Complex Research Articles

Dispossession and beyond: Politics of rural land conversion in China's tourism villages

Across the peripheries of global South cities, projects to convert rural land for development purposes have brought dramatic impact on rural communities and environments. Many of these initiatives involve aggregating land, mobilizing investments, and resettling populations, with direct implications for villagers’ land rights and livelihoods. In existing studies, rural land conversions have often been examined through frameworks of “land grabbing” and “dispossession”. This paper argues for the need to go beyond these frameworks in conceptualizing the varied pathways and outcomes of rural land takings. It presents a comparative case study of two villages in China, whose land has been redeployed for tourism development. In one village, state-led expropriation led to the loss of land rights and the resettlement of villagers in new housing complexes. In another, villagers held onto land ownership and their property but saw intra-community inequalities amplified as residents were differentially incorporated into the tourism economy. By demonstrating how the nuanced mechanisms of land conversion could facilitate variegated livelihood and distributive outcomes between and within communities, this paper problematizes universalist conceptualizations of dispossession and calls for theorizing both “with” and “beyond” dispossession to account for the multifaceted dynamics of land development in global South contexts.

Mass housing in transition: innovability in large-scale housing complexes

Mass housing in transition: innovability in large-scale housing complexes

An Integrated Approach to Constraints Theory and Fuzzy Analytical Hierarchy Process (FAHP) in Construction Projects (Case Study)

The research endeavors to harness the benefits stemming from the integration of constraint theory into construction project management, with the primary goal of mitigating project completion delays. Additionally, it employs fuzzy analysis to determine the relative significance of fundamental constraints within projects by assigning them appropriate weights. The research problem primarily revolves around two key issues. Firstly, the persistent utilization of outdated methodologies and a heavy reliance on workforce experience without embracing modern computerized technologies. Secondly, the recurring problem of project delivery delays. Construction projects typically encompass five fundamental constraint types: cost restrictions, time constraints, administrative and legal limitations, technical and design constraints, and environmental constraints. To address these issues, a field study was conducted, focusing on the development of a housing complex in Qa'imaqamiya, Al-Mada'in district, Bismayah. The researchers propose a three-stage methodology to tackle these challenges. In the initial stage, the theory of accelerated activities is applied to all concurrent implementable tasks. Subsequently, the second stage introduces a hierarchical analysis process, known as FAHP, to quantify the importance of each constraint. Finally, in the third phase, fuzzy logic is employed to calculate the projected duration and associated costs for each activity, ensuring project execution and delivery within agreed-upon timeframes. After applying the proposed methodology, there is a reduction in completion time by up to (23%). Research Type: Research Paper

An approach for constructing spatially paired pseudo repeat-sales housing price indices in China

AbstractConstructing a reliable housing price index is crucial for accurately reflecting housing price dynamics and enhancing transparency in the housing market. However, existing methods for constructing housing price indices often confront many challenges, such as omitted variable issues in the hedonic model and constrained samples used in the repeat-sales model. To address these challenges, this study identifies a spatially paired relationship between complexes and develops a Spatially Paired Pseudo Repeat-Sales model to construct the housing price index. This approach offers two significant advantages: first, it enlarges the sample size used in the repeat-sales model at least 1.8 times; second, it effectively estimates the effects of spatial dependency and physical housing factors on prices while mitigating the impacts of unobservable factors through differentiation. The findings of this paper suggest that using the spatially paired pseudo repeat-sales model can significantly improve the estimation of housing price volatility, by approximately 13%. Moreover, the constructed housing price index model demonstrates significant robustness, even when the spatial weight settings are altered. This research provides convincing evidence of improved housing market transparency for stakeholders, including governments, institutional developers, and individual investors. Additionally, the constructed model can inform other similar research in housing price index construction by providing a spatially pairing perspective on housing complexes.

Between smart housing and home. EU-funded climate smart interventions in Swedish public housing

Smart housing and its consequences for tenants is still a largely absent field in smart city and housing research. Departing from the EU-funded project GrowSmarter, 2015–2019 and a renovation project of a 1960s housing complex in Stockholm, the article investigates tensions around retrofitting older apartment blocks to make them climate smart. The article presents the argument that top-down approaches of EU-funded climate-smart city interventions leave minimal space for different stakeholders to steer the process and limits the tenants’ role and influence. Researching the implementation of smart technology in housing renovations and how it ultimately effects tenants’ everyday lives, the article adds to previous knowledge of uneven development of climate smart solutions through bringing in the outcomes of housing renovation projects, and how ‘actual smart cities’ are played out within the housing sector. The article brings together research on climate urbanism, housing studies and smart cities with the purpose to understand the scalar politics of smart implementations and the effects on tenants.

Domestic Space Structure and Abandonment Behavior: The Ye Family Complex at Baomei, Tong An District (Fujian, P.R. China)

Anthropological archaeology strives to recover, understand and explain past social dynamics. It relies on the uncovered material record to highlight past behavior patterns. For such a research agenda to be successful, one needs to fully understand all aspects of the processes involved in the formation of the archaeological record. It is undisputed that “Abandonment” is the condition _sine qua none_ for the formation of archaeological sites. Fieldwork conducted at the Ye Family high ranking Qing Dynasty office-holder housing complex, outlines the “use-history” of the investigated architectural complex and its adjustment to China recent contemporary history. The housing complex shifted from an initial prestigious imperial office-holder family to a “commune” housing for disadvantaged families during the cultural revolution, to be finally either progressively abandoned and/or re-cycled as storage complex. Combining informant input and field archaeology methodologies, the study of an abandoned elite traditional vernacular house provides the opportunity to decipher abandonment processes and contribute to the theoretical agenda of anthropological archaeology.

Housing and utility complex in the system of sociocultural institutionality

The article examines the issue of the housing and utility services as a sociocultural institution. It has been noted that the larger the urban settlement, the more difficult it is to organize orderly interactions necessary for the sustainability of the urban structure, convenience for residents, safety, expressiveness of the cultural landscape, etc. Housing and utility services perform an important function of forming a positive image of a city, making it competitive in attractiveness in comparison with others cities. The research problem lies in the fact that the housing and utility services are generally considered from the standpoint of economics and management, despite the fact that the activities of this complex have a pronounced socio-cultural orientation. This allows us to talk about the relevance of the study of housing and utility services as a sociocultural institution in order to identify factors that contribute to the effectiveness of the activities of public utility organizations, or lead to institutional dysfunctions. The main research method chosen is structural and functional analysis, which allows us to consider housing and communal services from the point of view of the implementation of sociocultural functions and the search for the causes of possible dysfunctions. Consistently the institutional features of housing and utility complex are revealed. In conclusion, the main reasons for possible institutional dysfunctions of the object under consideration have been determined: violations of functionality are possible, firstly, as a result of general crisis conditions in the economy and politics; secondly, as a result of natural disasters; thirdly, as a result of a lack of understanding of the importance and complexity of housing and communal services by state and municipal authorities. Also, the gap in this area may be affected by shortcomings in the organizational culture of specific enterprises in the public utilities sector.

En conversación con las arquitectas: la entrevista como herramienta de investigación feminista en estudios de postgrado

This paper addresses an experience that integrates research and teaching with a gender-based perspective in the qualifying Master of Architecture at the University of Alicante. This experience interweaves heuristic and hermeneutic strategies with the purpose of providing students with methodologies and tools for analysis that encourage a critical approach to the built environment. The study of collective housing complexes created by women architects in Spain is the catalyst for a biographical inquiry and personal encounters with their works and with the residents, in which the interview becomes an instrument to overcome the condition of architecture as an object and explore its epistemic and political fecundity.

Experimental Analysis of Thermal Performance and Evaluation of Vibration and Utility Function for the Readaptation of a Residential Building in an Experimental Housing Complex

Experimental Analysis of Thermal Performance and Evaluation of Vibration and Utility Function for the Readaptation of a Residential Building in an Experimental Housing Complex

Main contents and revision direction of the Urban Complex Development Act

The Act on Support for Urban Complex Development was enacted and promulgated on February 6, 2024. It is scheduled to take effect on February 7, 2025. This new law encourages private project implementers to actively participate in urban complex development, unlike the urban public housing complex project (under the public housing special law) that was introduced in accordance with the government’s plan to drastically expand the supply of 3080+ publicly led metropolitan housing announced on February 4, 2021. The urban public housing complex project is a system designed to establish a new business model for station areas, semi-industrial areas, and low-rise residential areas that are underutilized and aging because of difficulties with redevelopment and reconstruction projects. Public institutions have become project implementers instead of existing cooperative-centered redevelopment and reconstruction projects. The urban public housing complex project is a development project that utilizes comprehensive acquisition (including land expropriation) to quickly promote the project and supply new buildings in the form of compensation in kind if the landowner so desires. However, the complex development project introduced in the Act on Support for Urban Complex Development differs significantly from the plan described above in that the private sector, including landowners, trustees, and real estate investment trusts (REITs), become the main project implementers, promoting the project by utilizing management, disposal plans, and sales claims. In this article, I examine the concept and characteristics of complex development projects, procedures, and special provisions for these projects and identify problems and revision directions for relevant laws. Since complex development projects utilize management, disposal plans, and sales claims as business methodsand the project target is an urban area with a high concentration of old and substandardbuildings, I describe such projects by comparing them with the provisions of the Urban and Housing Environment Improvement Act, which regulates redevelopment and reconstruction projects. Finally, I suggest that necessary actions to smoothly implement complex development projects include securing differentiation from other development projects, supplementing specific provisions on REITs as the newly introduced project implementers, and improving the sales claim system and consent rate centered on land area.

Entangled histories of Architecture and Dispossession in The Pruitt-Igoe Myth (2011)

This paper addresses how documentary film may attend to, mediate, and negotiate the histories of the entanglement between housing and dispossession. For this purpose, it focuses on Chad Freidrichs’ 2011 documentary film The Pruitt-Igoe Myth that centers the accounts of Pruitt-Igoe’s African American residents. As it is well-known, the media images as well as the initial scholarly accounts of the demolishment of the housing complex have largely served as an icon of reactions against modernist architecture. The majority of later accounts, while steering the conversation away from a sole focus on architecture, singled out one or two aspects of this intricate tangle and approached the residents of the complex as passive victims rather than active agents. Here, The Pruitt-Igoe Myth constitutes a unique case not only within the popularized and highly mediatized conceptions of but also the extensive scholarship on the building complex. The paper argues that, in its centering of the first-hand accounts as well as documents of lives that unfolded in the building complex, this documentary offers us a more open mode of architectural historiography that centers the complex intersections of structural racism, dispossession, and built environment.

“En El Campo, Siempre Es Asi”: A Mixed Methodological Assessment of Spanish-Speaking Immigrant Farmworker Legal Needs in Oregon

This paper uses a convergent mixed method approach to assess the legal needs of Oregon's immigrant (Spanish-speaking) farmworking population. We adapt an English-language survey into Spanish, ensuring the validity of the quantitative results by employing intercept surveys at farmworkers' housing complexes, recording qualitative data regarding the ensuing social interactions, and generating ethnographic fieldnotes on the interactions, participants, and surrounding environs. We find that immigration is an umbrella category that structures other legal needs, rather than a legal need co-equal with other important categories such as healthcare, employment, housing, discrimination, and harassment. Our mixed methods approach provided rich descriptions of surveyed concerns as well as detecting and explaining the undercounting of categories such as law enforcement contact and sexual harassment.

Training on Making Street Light Poles Using Light Steel for the Community of Griya Permata Housing Complex, Handil Bakti Village, Alalak District, Barito Kuala Regency, South Kalimantan Province

Training on making street lighting poles using light steel can be an effective solution in improving the quality of lighting in public areas. Light steel has several advantages, such as lighter weight, resistance to corrosion, and ease of installation compared to conventional materials such as concrete or wood. The implementation of training activities on making street lighting poles using light steel was carried out on Saturday, May 25, 2024 at the Welding and Plumbing Workshop, Banjarmasin State Polytechnic. It is hoped that this training can contribute to community empowerment, where participants can apply the skills they have acquired to open small businesses in the manufacture and installation of lighting poles

Beyond individual factors: a critical ethnographic account of urban residential fire risks, experiences, and responses in single-room occupancy (SRO) housing

BackgroundBurn injuries are a significant public health concern, closely linked to housing conditions and socioeconomic status. Residents in socioeconomically deprived neighbourhoods are at increased risk of exposure to hazards due to older and poorer housing conditions and limited access to fire protection measures. Individual behaviours such as substance use, smoking, and hoarding are often highlighted as primary causes of residential fires, overshadowing the broader socioeconomic and structural factors that also play a significant role in housing safety. This paper explores the correlation between inadequate housing conditions and heightened fire risks leading to burn injuries, focusing on the contextual factors shaping everyday urban fire risks, experiences, and responses of residents living in Single-Room Occupancy (SRO) housing in Vancouver’s Downtown East Side (DTES) and staff working in the fire, health, housing (social and private), and non-profit sectors.MethodsAs part of an ongoing ethnographic study, we partnered with the Vancouver Fire Rescue Services (VFRS) to conduct participant observations in private, non-profit, and government-owned SROs, modular homes, and a temporary shelter. This paper synthesizes insights from participant observations from the first author’s self-reflexive journals, including informal conversations with approximately fifty-nine individuals such as SRO tenants, SRO managers/caretakers, health workers, burn survivors, municipal staff, not-for-profit staff, and firefighters.ResultsUrgent housing-related issues contributing to inequitable everyday urban fire risks were identified, such as structural deficiencies in SRO buildings and systems, inadequate waste management and storage, and inequitable approaches to addressing hoarding. Additionally, disparities in access to information and the interaction between interpersonal and structural stigmas were significant factors, underscoring the pressing need for intervention.ConclusionCommunities like DTES, facing precarious housing conditions, disadvantaged neighbourhoods, and complex health and social challenges, necessitate a comprehensive and holistic approach to fire prevention and safety. Recognizing the interplay between housing instability, mental and physical health issues, unregulated toxic drug supply, drug criminalization, and structural inequities allows practitioners from various sectors to develop contextually driven fire prevention strategies. This multifaceted approach transcends individual-level behaviour change and is crucial for addressing the complex issues contributing to fire risks in underserved communities.

From Cave to Cage? The Evolution of Housing Complexity and the Contemporary Dead End for the Human Brain

ABSTRACT The evolution of the ever-changing neuroplastic human brain is inseparably linked to its environment. While early humans evolved in response to nature’s complexity and unpredictability, over millennia, the housing trajectory has increasingly prioritized sedentary behaviors, predictability, and comfort at the expense of cognitive stimulation. Modern life stress, mental health issues, and cognitive decline are markers of a poor environment. The pandemic lockdown has implicitly exposed that we need better houses for our brains. This paper goes back in time, navigating the cross-cultural evolution of environmental complexity to escape the contemporary dead end for the human brain that needs to evolve further. The paper advocates for a paradigm shift in housing design, emphasizing the need to foster neuroplasticity rather than constrain it. By reconceptualizing houses as architects of our brains, architecture becomes an independent variable embedding what the brain needs rather than embodying what the brain wants.

Analisa Bangkitan Perjalanan di Wilayah Komplek Perumahan Safira Kota Jambi

From data from BPS (Central Statistics Agency) Jambi City, the population of Jambi City in 2022 is 619,553 people with an area of 205.38 km2, has 11 sub-districts. Safira Housing is one of the housing complexes located in Talang Bakung Village, Paal Merah District, Jambi City. Population Safira housing ± 455 people. The increase in trips made by a number of Safira housing communities will cause traffic jams during peak hours such as when leaving and returning from work. This research method uses multiple linear regression with independent variables consisting of the number of family members X1, the number of family members who work X2, number of family members attending school x3, with trip generation as variable Y and then analyzed using the SPSS application. The variable that has a dominant influence on the dependent (dependent) variable is based on the standardized coefficient beta value, namely the variable number of family members attending school/college (X3), number of family members (X1), and number of working family members (X2). The trip generation analysis model at Safira Housing is: Y 2.257 + 0.275 X1 + 0.227 X2 + 0.528 From this model, the factors that influence the generation of Safira Housing trips are obtained, namely the number of family members (X1), the number of family members who work (X2), the number of family members who go to school/college (X3). Based on the R Square value of 0.621, this means that 62.1% of trip generation at Safira Housing is explained by the independent variables in the form of number of family members, number of family members working, number of family members attending school/university.

Principles for evaluating the quality and sustainability of social housing architecture projects

This article critically examines the principles for assessing the quality and sustainability of social housing architecture projects, using the Mucajá Housing Complex, located in Macapá, Amapá, as a case study. Through a qualitative research methodology, including document, design, bibliographic, and photographic analysis, the physical and environmental aspects of the housing complex will be evaluated. The article identifies how the principles of flexibility, functionality, accessibility, and the sustainable use of natural resources were incorporated into the Mucajá project, analyzing its ability to meet the present and future needs of the residents, as well as its contribution to environmental preservation. The results indicate that the Mucajá Housing Complex does not satisfactorily meet most of the Principles of Sustainability and Quality in Housing Project Design. It highlights the complete absence of verifiers that meet the Principle of Sustainable Use of Natural Resources and the Principle of Flexibility, as well as the high inaccessibility of the Complex. This demonstrates that the housing complex is disconnected from most sustainability indicators.

Exploring how social housing residents interact with building openings in a hot-humid climate

In a hot-humid climate, natural ventilation is the most recommended strategy for obtaining thermal comfort indoors. The residents' behavior in opening windows and doors to promote natural ventilation is crucial for predicting thermal comfort, especially for low-income housing where energy costs can exceed household budgets. This study identifies residents’ behavior in social housing in northeast Brazil (a hot-humid climate), focusing on actions to regulate thermal comfort with natural ventilation. The methodology comprehends field research, surveys, data processing, and analysis. Interviews with 375 individuals across two social housing complexes reveal the significant role of security and cultural factors in window control behavior. The results highlight the considerable role of security and cultural factors in shaping occupant behavior concerning window control. The residents indicated that they are stimulated to open the windows and doors right after they wake up and close them at bedtime or when leaving the house. Occupancy is a significant driving factor, but the sleep period (unconscious state) plays a crucial role in determining the closure of openings, even to housing units with a 2.0 m high wall on the plot land limits and security bars on windows. This study contributes to the understanding of the complex interplay between security, cultural factors, and thermal comfort regulation, proposing valuable insights for design and policy interventions aimed at improving living conditions in similar contexts.

Israel’s landscapes of Brutalism

ABSTRACT This paper examines the adoption of brutalism in the work of Israeli landscape architects. Since the 1960s, Brutalism made its way from Europe to Israel by leading architects at the time. In parallel, landscape architects also considered Brutalism appropriate to the young state, and the use of concrete as a cheap and readily available construction material. They demonstrated creativity by constructing plazas, outdoor housing complexes, playgrounds and parks, essentially laying a cement carpet across the landscape. The absence of a well-established local outdoor material tradition, coupled with climatic and maintenance considerations, encouraged the burgeoning prominence of outdoor Brutalism in Israel.

Pollutant cross-transmission in courtyard buildings: Wind tunnel experiments and computational fluid dynamics (CFD) evaluation

Courtyards, a historical architectural feature surrounded by buildings, are common in urban housing and residential complexes. These spaces, often open-air and with rooms facing them, are crucial for daylight and natural ventilation. While courtyards are essential for introducing fresh airflow into adjacent indoor areas, the effectiveness of natural ventilation may be compromised due to potentially poor air circulation from limited openings. This raises a significant concern: could the design of courtyards inadvertently facilitate pollutant cross-transmission? Despite a wealth of research focused on airflow within courtyards, the indoor spaces in proximity to these courtyards have often been neglected in previous works, particularly concerning the exchange of pollutants between the indoor and courtyard environment. This research investigates the dynamics of indoor-outdoor pollutant cross-transmission in courtyard buildings, assessing factors like external wind flow patterns and internal pollutant sources. Wind tunnel experiments were conducted to measure internal pressure and CO2 concentration and to validate a computational model of the courtyard with 12 rooms. The validated Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) models were used to simulate the dispersion of pollutants from internal rooms under different wind conditions. The results showed that the k-epsilon Realizable model accurately simulated internal surface pressure distribution and pollutant dispersion in the courtyard building. It was observed that when pollutants were released from the downwind east-facing ground floor room, CO2 concentrations in adjacent side rooms on the same floor were significantly higher, increasing from the baseline of 400 ppm and reaching up to 3211 ppm in the north-facing room at a wind speed of 4.51 m/s and wind direction of 0°. Conversely, when pollutants originated from north- and south-facing side rooms, pollutants were minimally dispersed to adjacent rooms. Furthermore, at a wind direction of 45°, pollutants from wind-exposed rooms predominantly dispersed to downwind rooms, with peak concentrations exceeding 2400 ppm in downwind rooms. These findings demonstrate that pollutant dispersion is highly dependent on wind direction and the location of the pollutant source. The study concludes that while courtyards enhance indoor environmental quality through natural ventilation, their design must be carefully considered to prevent unintended pollutant cross-transmission, particularly under varying wind conditions and pollutant source locations.