Housing Transformation Research Articles

Design strategy and informal transformations in urban housing

Dweller-initiated transformations are mostly chided for their apparent locational spontaneity that is often at variance with functional and aesthetic objectives in formal housing design. This presumes speculator-driven motives as sole reasons for the phenomenon, and yet others, including the social and physical functional objectives also underlie the processes. The paper uses empirical findings from Nairobi housing estates—Buru-Buru; a middle-income estate and Kaloleni; a Council rental estate—to illustrate physical qualities in informal transformations of formal housing. Using measurements and illustrative material, the results show a (sub)-conscious rationale that generates tenements while also retaining the desired socio-spatial qualities of the middle-income neighbourhood. It is posited that a design strategy that is responsive to the varied objectives of economy, social and physical spatial demands of housing should inform concepts in housing design. This is aimed at enhancing environmental qualities of formal housing that emerge when faced with unilateral transformations.

Obsolescence and the Transformation of Public Housing Communities in the US

The United States is in the midst of transforming its system of public housing. It is argued that the transformation reflects both the political obsolescence of the New Deal social welfare approach to housing as well as the physical obsolescence of the social housing itself. This effort is strongly tied to the neoliberal turn of the 1980s that discredited state-centered approaches to policy making embodied in large social housing estates. The physical obsolescence of social housing is partially the result of the contemporary disdain for modernist architecture and partially the result of mismanagement of the physical assets of social housing over time. Racial dynamics have heavily influenced the social impacts of transformation, leading to a disproportionate impact on African-Americans as well as limiting the deconcentration of subsidized households hoped for by advocates. The place impacts of social housing transformation have been significant, both benefitting from and reinforcing patterns of gentrification and reinvestment in American cities during the 1990s and up to the recession of 2007.

Complex Derivatives of the Traditional Houses’ Ecological Components

This text analyzes the defects in design and use of the traditional heated bed and its applied current situation, combining wih the investigation on the spot to the project on the energy-conserving reform of the rural house in the Hei He city, and giving out the energy-conserving reform technology strategy for the traditional heated bed in the northeastern, and emphasizing the important role and practical significance of the complex derivatives of the traditional houses’ ecological components in the modernized transformation of the traditional houses

Transformation of the Ulsan Area's Hakseong Yi House(鶴城李氏) Members: Their Escape from the Local "Hyang'ri" Clerk status, and their transformation into "Sajok" figures, in the latter half period of Joseon - Alteration in the Status of the Local Hyang'ri beings -

Transformation of the Ulsan Area's Hakseong Yi House(鶴城李氏) Members: Their Escape from the Local "Hyang'ri" Clerk status, and their transformation into "Sajok" figures, in the latter half period of Joseon - Alteration in the Status of the Local Hyang'ri beings -

Not Your Perfect Home? How Malaysian Homeowners Make It Works

Modification of the home has become a ‘culture’ in Malaysian housing development. It is an act of altering an environment, allowing transformation of house into ‘home’. This paper presents the initial findings of a study on the physical modifications of houses by homeowners in the Klang Valley area. Various attributes from fifty houses were analyzed to determine the physical processes of housing modification. This paper concludes with suggestion for more studies on this behavioural phenomenon. The findings to some extent indicate that the current model for providing houses has yet to successfully fulfil the different needs of the people.

Modernization and Cultural Transformation: The Expansion of Traditional Batak Toba House in Huta Siallagan

Batak Toba people today are facing the dilemma of maintaining their tradition and keeping up to the modern way of living. This has resulted in cultural transformation of traditional houses, where modern utensils, new spaces and domestic life are added with no reference to the original one. The traditional settlements of Huta Siallagan in Samosir Island North Sumatra begin to aspire for urban standards of living, and traditional building practices are dying out because the basic domestic life systems are changing. Traditional houses are undergoing transformation as they are more and more influenced by the modernizing effect of capital economy.

SPACE TRANSFORMATION OF HOUSES WITH RAISED FLOOR IN CENTRAL DISTRICT OF PHNOM PENH, CAMBODIA

The aim of this study is to clarify the space transformation of houses with raised floor in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. We conclude the result as below from the date mostly based on the field survey. Previously one family lived in one house, but now several families live in one house by making additional new space and dividing large previous house space. They can access to their houses by using vacant land space for passage or arranging stairs on several positions or sharing corridor and veranda with each other. They satisfy the needs by sharing living space and access.

Sociologinė naujųjų būsto projektų posocialistiniame Vilniuje refleksija

Planned housing developments are a new phenomenon in post-Soviet cities – cities marked since 1989 by the rapid and wholesale transformation of housing markets, from a situation of overwhelmingly state-owned provision to the development of real estate markets. In this article I explore how this type of dwelling transforms urban space, reflecting the new provisions in the period, but also revealing a dual relationship with socialist space. Planned housing developments are characterised by the continuity of the ‘soviet’, i.e. by modern functionalist urbanism’s architectural practices; but in their symbolic dimension such developments are also associated with an inversion of collective housing practices. This symbolic aspect of planned housing developments can be described in terms of privacy and sameness. In this article I argue that these housing practices are naturalised and affirmed as desirable through representations of space, including representations produced within marketing, mass media and the legal system. Drawing on the concepts of police, politics and the political developed by Rancière and Swyngedouw, the article raises the question of whether in post-socialist Vilnius these new developments indicate the consolidation of a post-political condition.Keywords: new housing developments, urban sociology, political.

The Private Finance Initiative in English Council Housing Regeneration: A Privatisation too Far?

Despite the enormous body of scholarship that has tracked the transformation of social housing from the ‘public housing model’ of the welfare state era to the ‘social housing model’ of today, large gaps remain in our understanding of this shift. This paper addresses on one such vacuum—the controversial use of the Private Finance Initiative (PFI) as part of the Labour Government's Decent Homes programme in England. Focusing on ‘council housing’ schemes, a critical overview is presented of the housing PFI experience so far. The main purpose is to understand the motives and drivers behind the use of PFI in housing at different scales, assess the progress of the national PFI programme and explore the significant issues, controversies and challenges encountered. The paper concludes that PFI has proved to be more complicated and expensive than its proponents predicted and should be discontinued in the social housing sector.

The Poverty Deconcentration Imperative and Public Housing Transformation

AbstractPublic housing has been on the chopping block for almost two decades now in an effort to deconcentrate poverty. In 1992 the federal government created the Housing Opportunities for People Everywhere (HOPE) VI program. HOPE VI is driven by the assumption that deconcentrating neighborhood‐level poverty will yield better access to upward mobility opportunities for former public housing residents. To accomplish this, existing public housing is demolished and replaced with mixed‐income developments. Public housing residents are relocated, many with Housing Choice Voucher subsidies to private‐market rental housing. However, by its very definition mixed income means that only a small percentage of former residents get the opportunity to return. Do voucher relocated residents end up in lower poverty neighborhoods with greater upward mobility opportunities? We examine the spatial organization of relocation within the critical discourse on the deconcentration imperative. We highlight Atlanta because it recently became the first city in the nation to eliminate all of its public housing. Findings reveal that voucher relocatees end up in neighborhoods with modestly less poverty than the public housing neighborhoods they left. Questions remain about what poverty deconcentration means vis‐à‐vis policy goals. We provide recommendations for future research.

CONTRASTING HOUSING TRANSFORMATION IN CORE DHAKA AND PERI-URBAN ABUJA

Informal settlements constitute the bulk of urban housing stock. Culture specific dwelling units in the developing countries are transforming fast to commercial style housing due to drastic urbanization, globalization and their attendant acculturation. This paper focuses on establishing commonalities and disparities of the situations in Abuja, Nigeria, and Dhaka, Bangladesh, in terms of the transformation process, the predicating denominator, and the driving force. It will make comparative analysis of the changing residential patterns in these two developing world cities in Africa and Asia over a period of several decades. This research qualitatively contrast physical, social and psychological adjustments observed in traditional family compounds typical of Abuja; and the commercial subdivision of old Dhaka houses. In line with the post positivists' epistemology, an emergent- grounded theory triangulates with quantitative evidence and field observation. The findings suggest a fusion of isolated Gbagyi housing units into hollowed-out structure physically; and fission of the tribal group socially. Individualism replaces communal responsibility, with Islam and Christianity as moderators in Abuja, while the core Dhaka housing transformation pattern emphasizes on spatial economization through subdivision, addition-subtraction, conversion and reconstruction, motivated by convenient fraternity of respective socio-economic classes that are united in housing themselves. These findings give evidence of economic precedence over cultural sustainability in the process of housing transformation. However, the capitalist tendency of the twenty first century for income first, jeopardizes local identity, rhythm and modernity. This could have a global implication on cultural sustainability of vernacular housing in the urban environment. Key words: Informal settlements, cultural sustainability, housing transformation, informal delivery.

Gentrification in Black and White

The gentrification that has transformed high-poverty neighbourhoods in US cities since the mid 1990s has been characterised by high levels of state reinvestment. Prominent among public-sector interventions has been the demolition of public housing and in some cases multimillion dollar redevelopment efforts. In this paper, the racial dimension of state-supported gentrification in large US cities is examined by looking at the direct and indirect displacement induced by public housing transformation. The data show a clear tendency towards the demolition of public housing projects with disproportionately high African American occupancy. The pattern of indirect displacement is more varied; public housing transformation has produced a number of paths of neighbourhood change. The most common, however, involve significant reductions in poverty, sometimes associated with Black to White racial turnover and sometimes not. The findings underscore the central importance of race in understanding the dynamics of gentrification in US cities.

Housing Pathway Divergence in Japan's Insecure Economy

The housing system in post-war Japan has consistently driven the growth of the owner-occupied housing sector, where many people have followed a conventional life-course in terms of ascending the housing ladder towards homeownership. Since the 1990s, however, a more insecure economy combined with the reorientation of housing and social policies has led to divergence in people's housing pathways. The conservative nature of public policy has largely been maintained, advantaging middle-class family households in accessing homeownership. However, in response to economic stagnation and within the context of pervasive neo-liberalism, the government has moved sharply towards accentuating the role of the market in providing housing and mortgages. Neo-liberal policies have become more pronounced while conservative institutions have firmly been ingrained in Japan's post-war society. Conventional middle-class families, protected by conservative policies in moving up the housing ladder, have maintained their relatively advantageous positions in the market economy. Neo-liberal policy has especially affected the housing conditions of specific groups who have been beyond the protection of conservative institutions, i.e. unmarried individuals, low-income households and those in unstable employment. The combination of conservative and neo-liberal approaches in policy practices has thus had strong diverging effects on people's housing opportunities. This paper explores the fragmentation of housing paths in Japan's insecure economy with particular reference to transformations in housing and social policies.

The geographic concentration of housing vouchers, Blacks, and poverty over time: a study of Cincinnati, Ohio, USA

Using data from the US Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) concerning Housing Choice Voucher (HCV, formerly called Section 8) recipients, the authors provide a spatial analysis in Cincinnati, Ohio, USA. ‘Hot spot’ analysis is utilized to detect areas with significant densities of voucher recipients compared with the surrounding environs. Results show that the implementation of Cincinnati's HCV program between 2000 and 2005 in conjunction with public housing transformation has not led to a greater dispersion of voucher recipients and either poverty or racial deconcentration. Many HCV households remain concentrated in hot spots. The implications for US low-income housing policy are discussed.

CONSIDERATION ON SPATIAL FORMATION AND TRANSFORMATION OF TAI-LAO HOUSE IN BAN PAKSY VILLAGE (LUANGPRABANG, LAOS)

Major of the research is to clarify the process of formation and transformation of Tai house in Mekong Basin, especially in Laos and northeast region (Isan) of Thailand. The purpose of this research is to clarify the spatial formation and transformation of Tai-Lao house at Ban Paksy village, Luangprabang in Laos. Base on the previous research of Luangprabang by Sophie Clement-Charpentier and Pierre Clement, this research tries to analyze the spatial characteristics of houses at Ban Paksy Village in Luangprabang by the field survey. It is one of the main issues of the research to explain the space order of site plan and house plan that the inhabitants has succeeded.This paper classifies the house plans into several types and describes the basic type and its variation. The authors suggest that Tai-Lao dwelling and the way of life has been gradually changed from the past and symbolism of spaces has weakened according to the change in the way of behavior and the way of recognizing space by the people.

Creating mixed-income developments in Chicago: developer and service provider perspectives

Mixed-income development has been embraced by policymakers across the country as a promising means of deconcentrating poverty and revitalizing inner-city neighborhoods. The unprecedented scale of Chicago's effort at mixed-income development provides an important opportunity to learn about the possibilities and challenges of this approach. Most of the new developments have completed at least one pre-occupancy phase of construction, marketing, and resident outreach. This paper explores the perspectives of two key actors in the mixed-income development process: private developers and social service providers. In-depth interviews were conducted with 26 individuals working on nine of Chicago's major new mixed-income developments. This qualitative analysis uses the perspectives of these key actors to identify some of the major early challenges of the mixed-income development process in Chicago. Implications for the future of mixed-income development and public housing transformation in Chicago and across the country are considered.

Social change and transformations in housing

This study aims to illustrate how residential morphology and home-use patterns reflect the transition from semi-nomadism to an urban lifestyle undergone by the Bedouin of the Negev (Israel). Thirty houses and 300 building plans were studied while planners, builders and residents were interviewed. Three types of buildings and home-use patterns were identified. Each type corresponds to a stage in the Bedouin adaptation to urban life in government resettlement towns. The state encourages resettlement by selling developed land at a low price and providing access to subsidies and mortgages, while refusing to develop property and not hesitating to demolish houses built on tribal sites. The houses built over the past 30 years are indicators of Bedouin lifestyle adaptation, as the Bedouin have been increasingly involved in their design. The empirical basis for this study is an analysis of the houses in Tel Sheva, the first of seven resettlement towns built for the Bedouin in the Negev. The houses considered were built between 1972 and 2002, with 1972 marking the beginning of the period in which the Build-your-own-home development scheme was applied to the Bedouin, a scheme in which plots of about 1,000m2 are allocated and owners are responsible for building on them.

Privatization, commodification and transformation in Japanese housing: ephemeral house – eternal home

AbstractThe space and place of the Japanese home holds an iconic status in both foreign and indigenous understandings of Japanese life. The architectural forms and bounded spaces of Japanese houses have historically been embedded in social practices that integrate individuals with hierarchical orders of space and social relations moving outwards from the house to community. Housing units and residential neighbourhoods have, however, undergone considerable transformation in the last century. Homes have been increasingly privatized, commodified and marketized, while the features of housing and neighbourhoods have been intensively modernized and urbanized. This paper considers transformations in the form of Japanese housing and the extent to which contemporary housing production and consumption mediates historically embedded notions of domestic relations and space.

Urban poverty and housing transformations in informal settlements: The case of Dar-es-Salaam, Tanzania

Housing is an important asset of the urban poor. Depending on the ability to manage the asset and on theregulatory framework, households can earn income from renting out rooms and move out of poverty. Thisstudy is on housing transformations in informal settlements, unlike similar earlier research on government-builthousing. Based on empirical investigations in two informal settlements in Dar-es-Salaam, Tanzania,the article explores the effects of housing transformations on urban poverty. Owner households earnsubstantial amounts of income from renting out rooms and from water vending. Grown-up children 'nest'in their parents' homes and use them as working spaces, thus enhancing the stock of social capital inowner households. On the negative side, housing transformation contributes to excessive plot coverage,in-house crowding, occupational health hazards and poor sanitary conditions. Through road encroachment,housing transformation can render settlement structure dysfunctional. The negative externalitiesundermine efforts to increase household income and to promote health in informal settlements, and arelikely to compromise some of the Millennium Development Goals targets in Tanzania. Operationalisingempowerment in informal settlements is one of the most promising ways forward.

CONSIDERATIONS ON STREET SYSTEM AND FORMATION OF STREET BLOCKS OF PHIMAI (ISAN, THAILAND)

This paper discusses the form of townhouses and traditional houses in northern Thailand, clarifying the process of urban formation and characteristics of living environment. The research this paper is based on tries to compare forms of houses in Thailand with those in other regions of South East Asia and southern China. Our previous papers clarified the typology and its transformation of shop house in Bangkok, Patani and Malacca... In this paper, authors selected Phimai (Isan,Thailand) to consider the formation of urban tissues and its transformation. Phimai (Isan,Thailand) is known as a historic City with many ancient monuments traced back to Angkor Khmer period. One of major focuses of this paper is how the townhouse(shop house) was introduced in Thailand. The paper is composed by historical analysis of the process of establishment and development of Phimai and considerations on block formation and typology of approaches to house lots. Analyzing the characteristics of street system and block, the paper suggests that two types of houses clearly characterizes the spatial formation in Phimai.