Problematic of mass-housing projects, Rise and fall mass housing - Historical background, Open house systems as new alternatives, Root of adaptability and sustainability in traditional built environment, Adaptable housing design (AHD) - systematic approach

1. NCRC-2015
MMU, SADOPUR,AMBALA
Session 2: Cities of 19th and 20th Century
Adaptability of housing stock as potentiality for
affordable and sustainable popular settlements
Abdelrahman A. A. Mohamed
Associate Professor & Researcher,
Institute for Architecture & Housing studies, (HBNRC)
Housing & Building National Research Center, Cairo, Egypt
dr.arch.abdelrahman@gmail.com

2. NCRC-2015
MMU, SADOPUR,AMBALA
Adaptability of housing stock as potentiality for affordable and sustainable
popular settlements
Introduction:
“As our environment changes and individual requirements and aspirations
develop, the need for adaptable architecture is ever more current.”
(Holdham, J. 2008)
Main Hypotheses:
• An appropriate mass housing production systems for poor people can
be adopted through “Adaptable Design Tools”.
• “Adaptable Housing Design” can create various levels of changeable
architecture, and sustainable solutions which capable to accommodate
the demands of the users and local environment.

3. NCRC-2015
MMU, SADOPUR,AMBALA
Adaptability of housing stock as potentiality for affordable and sustainable
popular settlements
Problematic of mass-housing projects:
1. Mass housing projects depends on a huge state investment to
implement finished housing units in a short time.
2. They failed to cope with the dynamic change of users' needs.
3. They didn't reflect sustainable development as following:
• Socially- don‟t reflect or maintain local socio-culture values.
• Environmentally - local environmental conditions have been
neglected in their design and planning.
• Economically - deteriorate rapidly and need high maintenance cost.
• Esthetically - look monotonous and exposed generally to informal
transformation or vandalism.
• Affordability - don‟t cover the housing demands for poor people.

4. NCRC-2015
MMU, SADOPUR,AMBALA
Adaptability of housing stock as potentiality for affordable and sustainable
popular settlements
Rise and fall mass housing - Historical background - :
With its origins with “Modernism” movement after the First World War,
mass housing spread throughout capitalist and socialist societies alike.
Le Corbusier vision “La Ville Radieuse,”
Source: http://strates.revues.org/5573
SARCELLES - Les Locheres
Source: http://www.metropolis.org/news
mass housing as a vision of modernity

5. NCRC-2015
MMU, SADOPUR,AMBALA
Adaptability of housing stock as potentiality for affordable and sustainable
popular settlements
Mass housing for low income groups in Egypt:
Mass housing projects have been witnessed great informal transformations.
Poor people act informally to adapt their rigid units with their limited resources
according to their needs. The result of this process was remarkable urban
deterioration in those settlements.
Informal development of public mass housing for low income in Egypt

6. NCRC-2015
MMU, SADOPUR,AMBALA
Adaptability of housing stock as potentiality for affordable and sustainable
popular settlements
Open house systems as new alternatives -
‘Domino house’ 1914, by Le Corbusier's was the first housing design, which
allowed the user a freedom in planning the interior. In contrast, 1972, was
Habraken's notion of the permanent ‘support’ and the temporary ‘infill’ takes
the idea to another level, which represents the origins of the ‘Open Building
system‟. It is captured by one of John Habraken's quotes: “We should not
forecast what will happen, but try to make provisions for the unforeseen”.
A Support is not a Skeleton, Image courtesy of N.J. Habraken, about
concept of Le Corbusier's the „Domino house‟ 1914
development of open house systems – from Domino to Support

7. NCRC-2015
MMU, SADOPUR,AMBALA
Adaptability of housing stock as potentiality for affordable and sustainable
popular settlements
Root of adaptability and sustainability in traditional built environment
The important lessons which can always be learned from traditional old cities are
that sustainable development of built environment is adaptation and appropriation
process to fit properly within its local ecological context.
Urban tissue of traditional built environment

8. NCRC-2015
MMU, SADOPUR,AMBALA
Adaptability of housing stock as potentiality for affordable and sustainable
popular settlements
Adaptable housing design (AHD) - systematic approach
Adaptable Housing design tools allow the user to be more engaged with
developing their built environment, creating architecture that has longevity and
richness.
1st phase- Analytical Tools: (to analyze)
• Analyze ecological setting - physical environment, social dynamics and
employment of the poor.
• Define resources allocations & Accessibility - mechanism of resource
management
• Define main active parties' representatives – GBO, CBO, NGOs,
Developers, Dwellers …

9. NCRC-2015
MMU, SADOPUR,AMBALA
Adaptability of housing stock as potentiality for affordable and sustainable
popular settlements
2nd phase-Design Tools:
• Guidelines of design strategy - based on: dynamics of the housing stock
(depends on the conditions of ownership, cultural pattern and social organization)
• Interactive relation among (MDU) - Morphology, Domain and Use
• Design and execute documents - design modules based on analytical
study for traditional urban tissue, living activities and equipment, building
regulations and incremental design strategy
Analytical chart activities& built form/ space and position

10. NCRC-2015
MMU, SADOPUR,AMBALA
Adaptability of housing stock as potentiality for affordable and sustainable
popular settlements

11. NCRC-2015
MMU, SADOPUR,AMBALA
Adaptability of housing stock as potentiality for affordable and sustainable
popular settlements
3rd phase–Implementation's Spheres:
Defined and formulation responsibilities at different built environment levels (urban
tissue and infrastructure level, support building units and plots demarcation level
and incremental growth level) among actors as active parties:
• Collective level - It is a thematic process which embraces collective decisions
and accumulation of prevailing local cultural traditions and building regulations.
Support elements include basic building structure.

12. NCRC-2015
MMU, SADOPUR,AMBALA
Adaptability of housing stock as potentiality for affordable and sustainable
popular settlements
Collective level - grid formulation process for urban tissue and support
Plot demarcation (basic and margin areas) - basic structure units
public realm, including the establishment of urban patterns of built environment:
placement of streets, public spaces, residential areas, services and networks.

13. NCRC-2015
MMU, SADOPUR,AMBALA
Adaptability of housing stock as potentiality for affordable and sustainable
popular settlements
The support is dominated by common architectural styles, climate, building
codes, land use rules, investment requirements, local market, and other local
conditions. Thus, within its specific social and technical setting, the support is
built using locally appropriate means of design and construction
Collective level – neighbor cluster unit in preoccupation stage

14. NCRC-2015
MMU, SADOPUR,AMBALA
Adaptability of housing stock as potentiality for affordable and sustainable
popular settlements
• Private level - Refer to all decisions to address the private realm, which
includes demarcation process of residential allotments, sharing of the support
by basic habitable units and defining the operation fields for stockholders.
Non-thematic sustained altered processes encompass individual acts, utilizing
traditional expertise.
Universal options of plot demarcation – individual level

15. NCRC-2015
MMU, SADOPUR,AMBALA
Adaptability of housing stock as potentiality for affordable and sustainable
popular settlements
Support is intended to accommodate and outlast changes to persist largely independent
of the individual occupants‟ choices while accommodating changing life circumstances.
A support unit building is not a mere skeleton. It is not neutral, but is rather enabling
architecture. From the perspective of the community, the support appears complete. But
to be occupied, it requires appropriation process to fit the users' needs.
Private level – neighbor unit occupation stage & consolidation

16. NCRC-2015
MMU, SADOPUR,AMBALA
Adaptability of housing stock as potentiality for affordable and sustainable
popular settlements
CONCLUSION:
Residential Adaptable Building design‟s main purpose is to encourage
individuals' choices and responsibilities within it sustainable built environment.
design strategies labeling points:
• Balancing - distributing responsibility to strike a good balance between
overall community coherence and individual freedom in each project
• Enabling - efficiency and variety of physical and organizational patterns in
building.
• Ordering and Interchangeability - enable unambiguous separation of
responsibilities eliminates disruptive reverberation of one part‟s change
through the whole form.
• Sustainability - increasing building life, building for change and
accommodating natural variety.

17. NCRC-2015
MMU, SADOPUR,AMBALA
Adaptability of housing stock as potentiality for affordable and sustainable
popular settlements
Thank you