Paper Housing - Shigeru Ban

Master Architect ! Emergency Shelters and Housing TED TALK

 Source: http://www.architectural-review.com/Pictures/web/v/s/t/Shigeru_Ban_Col_0_390.jpg

Student Housing!

Source: Cattani Architects, Cité A Docks - Le Havre, France - Shiiping Container Student Housing

Open Modular System of Sustainable Houses (SAVMS) / Cso Arquitectura

SAMVS open modular houses make a great solution for low income housing programs given their fast construction time, simple materials, modularity and overall efficiency. Comprised of modules that serve specific functions and are fabricated in a local factory, the home can be built in just one and half months for 700 Euros per square meter.

Industrial in design, the home nevertheless boasts sensible materials that ensure sufficient thermal massing and ventilation. The interior is light and fresh and the green roof helps with insulation and enhanced air quality. Rainwater is harvested and recycled and the entire home is powered by both solar thermal plates and photovoltaic panels. It’s hard to go wrong with the SAMVS units: they save materials, energy, time and money, and they’re not so hard on the eye either.

source: http://www.archdaily.com/295004/open-modular-system-of-sustainable-houses-savms-cso-arquitectura/

Public Housing Design 101

Crime prevention through environmental design (CPTED) is a multi-disciplinary approach to deterring criminal behavior through environmental design. CPTED strategies rely upon the ability to influence offender decisions that precede criminal acts. As of 2012, most implementations of CPTED occur solely within the built environment. By changing the areas we reside in to deter criminals from committing acts in our communities is the main goal of CPTED. Urban design and the planning that goes in to the creation of new and reformation of older communities, citizens in these neighborhoods and places of business can feel safer at all hours.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_prevention_through_environmental_design

The rise of social housing movement in Taiwan: dec 06

Unlike the developmental model in Singapore, public housing in Taiwan has been neglected overtime by the government in periods of rapid economic growth.  Most public housing units were built for and sold to the public servants and the people in the military sector instead of socially and economically disadvantageous people. Nowadays, public rental housing for disadvantaged people only occupies 0.09% of the total housing stock.  Therefore it could hardly play the role as social safety net when the Taiwan society experiences economic fluctuations.  At the same time, the skyrocketing price of housing has made purchasing a housing unit an unreachable dream for young people.  In addition, discrimination in the housing market also leads to the difficulties in housing searches for disadvantaged people such as elderly singletons, the disabled, and poor people.

 To address this situation, two years ago a movement urging the government to provide public rental housing emerged.  It could be viewed as a reincarnation of the housing movement in Taiwan from late 1980s to early 1990s.  However, this time the appeal of the movement has changed from government intervention in leveraging housing prices in the private market to more public housing or social housing for rental based on people’s housing rights.  This talk introduces the history of the two periods of housing movements in Taiwan, and gives an overview of the achievements as well as unachieved agenda of the recent movement for social housing in Taiwan.

For more information contact: fasrda@nus.edu.sg

Venue: FASS, NUS, at the AS7 Shaw Foundation Building, level 6, in room 06-42, the Research Division Seminar Room.

Charter Cities by Paul Rommer

Q: Would the government in the city subsidize the housing for the workers? 

A: The government can’t give residents in a city a higher standard of living by charging higher rent for the land and then giving renters their money back as a housing subsidy. People who work can afford to pay rent.

Q: If charter city residents live in small apartments with few amenities, would life there be any better than life in a slum?
A: In a charter city, all residents would have access to utilities like safe municipal water at costs below those that they would pay in a slum. They would not be subject to arbitrary relocation by predatory officials or gang leaders. They would live in a place with no tolerance for violence and crime, a place where people have to follow formal rules, rules that prevent harmful activities like dumping garbage in the street or building unsafe structures.

Q: Would housing in a charter city be constructed according to building codes?
A: Possibly. The people who rent apartments can’t verify after the fact that the building where they will live was constructed to be safe. Building codes are one way to solve the informational asymmetry. Efficient building codes can ensure safety without restricting the supply of small, low cost apartments.

http://chartercities.org/faq/11/faq

Growing housing opportunities in Africa: Encouraging investment / Growing the Market

A joint conference offered by the African Union for Housing Finance 

and the Bank of Tanzania’s Housing Finance Programme

 8 – 10 October 2012

Bank of Tanzania Conference Centre, 10 Mirambo Street, Dar es Salaam, Tanzania
Africa’s rapidly developing economies and cities offer tremendous opportunities, and challenges, for housing development and investment.  Urbanisation rates in Africa are the highest in the world, and positive growth over the last decade has put many countries in a position to assertively address the housing situations of their populations. While the mortgage sector remains small, developments in many countries suggests that this is changing.  Housing practitioners across the continent are beginning to grapple with and understand the opportunities available and are developing precisely targeted products and projects.  Their work begins to chart pathways for new entrants into the sector, and this will contribute towards the growth of the housing sector across the continent.  Governments, too, are recognising the integral role of housing in overall economic growth, and are addressing the regulatory and policy constraints to housing investment, opening up further opportunities for growth.
To showcase and promote these opportunities, the African Union for Housing Finance and the Housing Finance Programme of the Bank of Tanzania have joined forces to offer a conference with the theme “Growing Housing Opportunities in Africa: Encouraging Investment and Growing the Market”. 

It is fortuitous to offer the conference in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, where the Ministry of Lands, Housing and Human Settlements Development and the Bank of Tanzania are working together in a partnership with the World Bank, and with the private sector, to grow housing opportunities in a focused way.   Tanzania’s experiences in growing its mortgage market and promoting the delivery of affordable housing, while also actively addressing the market where mortgages cannot go, will be showcased.  The experiences in Tanzania will be of particular interest to other countries exploring the potential of a mortgage liquidity facility, or who have already ventured on this path and wish to consider alternative approaches to the concept.  The first day will focus on ways to encourage investor interest, through the development of sustainable investment models, the collection of data and the development of lender track records.

The focus of the second day is on growing the market through the development of niche market interventions and products that meet the breadth of the housing need. The day starts with a showcase of successful developments in progress – delegates will be invited to choose four, of up to ten projects, which will be presented simultaneously in a “housing developments marketplace”.  This is followed by a session exploring different ways in which the needs of the low-income population can be served – from the provision of micro-mortgages through to sustainable housing microfinance.  The different examples offer housing practitioners useful insight into opportunities for their own growth and development.

This conference will enable delegates to define their own role in growing housing opportunities in Africa.  Whether delegates are government officials, investors, developers, lenders or members of civil society, the conference will offer each participant useful insights and evidence for promoting housing in their own local contexts.