Our Outputs

Housing for Europe

Strategies for quality in urban space, excellence in design, performance in building

hopus final output

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Hopus Final Outputs - Fact Sheet

Housing for Europe: Strategies for Quality in Urban Space, Excellence in Design, Performance in Building

The URBACT HOPUS Working Group completed its programme of exchange and learning activity with a final conference organised in Rome under the above-mentioned title. 

The first day brought the Local Support Group of the Lead Partner together in an Italian speaking forum to evaluate residential policy and planning in Rome and Lazio in relation to the topic.

The Keynote Sessions of the conference filled the programme of day 2 (23rd of April) together with the presentation of the accompanying final publication produced by the transnational project (same title as conference).  
Successively project partners set out background and focussed appraisals of their perspectives in relation to the task of achieving new housing qualities. The project Lead Partner and Lead Expert explained how the network had concentrated attention on examining ways of developing and sharing ideas on “smart” intelligent guidance for the design of housing and the public realm. Referring to the example of Hammarby Sjöstad in Sweden the concept of applying a basic urban code was linked to the need to “create the place” where people can have a worthy living experience and where it is recognised that “high quality outcomes are not delivered by accident”. The notion of quality labelling found a ready link to the preoccupation of Delft University of Technology in seeking to promote and realise energy neutral neighbourhoods and cities, including the concept of energy certification. With proven examples, intervention in the energy performance of housing areas seemed indeed to offer one of the most interesting entry points to generate radical changes in approach at district and city-wide levels. In the case of Gdynia and the Gdansk Metropolitan area such a key was identified as useful - to overcome the many operational, financial, attitudinal and institutional obstacles which housing policy makers and delivery agencies are facing in transforming practice from the framework of the past into a workable and inclusive model for the future. The City of Reggio Calabria (in collaboration with the local University) explained their approach to improving quality of affordable housing inspired by involving a Local Support Group based on the URBACT model. Here a new dynamic is being tested by involving developers and the construction sector to work with the local authority and inhabitants from the outset in the implementation of a Local Plan of Action to implement retrofitting initiatives. 

In a topical address Professor Walter Matznetter of the University of Vienna provided a comprehensive view on the evolution of pan European Housing policy and approaches, based on a review of relevant key post-war literature. In addition the significant potential of adopting an integrated approach to the problem was supported by the links established with related URBACT projects represented in the presentations by SUITE (affordable housing supply) and Building Healthy Communities (establishing quality of health/life indicators as a tool for housing and city policy makers).

The main conference day closed with a lively round table discussion in which many of the points raised during the earlier sessions were again placed under the microscope with “design coding” surfacing as a valid instrument to guide developments and “place-making”, but also as an advocate of the public interest. Encouraging flexibility but with ongoing monitoring, the watchword “would I want to live in this place” was highlighted as a constant reminder to be referred to in framing policy and projects. In a similar vein the importance of dealing with the software in equal measure to the hardware found general consensus. The generally poor standard of information available in respect of choice and quality in the housing market was set alongside the potentially positive role of labelling and certification in contributing to quality improvement. A poignant reflection suggested that while innovation in the sector is important, concentration on doing existing simple things right, and in an integrated way, would already provide performing (essential) levels of progress in our cities’ housing neighbourhoods. 

The final conference day comprised a site visit, where delegates were shown a number of suburban housing concentrations in the eastern periphery of the City of Rome. Emphasis was placed on the gulf between intrinsic qualities of inter bellum workers housing (borgatas) and the deficiencies of mono-functionalism, lack of public transport links, irrelevant and badly maintained public space, concentration of low-income groups which  would aggravate the poor quality of response which later slab-block developments represent as a mass-housing solution. The group deliberated over the incongruous insertion of new housing developments “islands of emptiness” in the same conceptual locational structure, and particularly the manifestation of gated communities where “connection to the place” is difficult to comprehend. 

Philip Stein
Thematic Pole Manager

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Housing for Europe - Strategies for quality in urban space, excellence in design, performance in building

final conference presentations

  • Housing Europe

          Federico De Matteis

          

  • Towards Energy Neutral New Housing Developments Municipal Policy Instruments In The Netherlands 

          Milly Tambach and Henk Visscher

          

  • Design Coding towards urban ‘Beauty & Energy’

          Gabriela Rembarz

          

  • Retrofitting actions for a new housing quality

          Martino Milardi

          

  • Local action plan and support group

          Deborah Pennestrì and Saverio Putortì

          

  • Progress in comparative housing policy research

          Walter Matznetter

          

  • Cross-cutting to enhance the integrated approach

          Philip Stein

          

  • SUITE and HOPUS –relation via an URBACT 'cloud'

          Heidrun Feigelfeld

          

  • Strategies for quality in urban space, excellence in design, performance in building

          Marco Santangelo

          

Good Green Safe Affordable Housing

The book Good Green Safe Affordable Housing was presented at the Urbact annual conference in Montpellier, December 2008. It collects the first results of the working group's activities, together with a strategic plan for the project's implementation phase.

Urbact II Working Group Hopus brings together five universities and two city administrations, each working on different aspects of housing: from the urban to the building approach, from building regulations to construction technology, from environmental quality to energy certification: a multi-faceted and interdisciplinary vision, trying to cover a wide range of different problems, joining theory and practice.
The challenge set out by the Leipzig Charter may seem vast; nevertheless, it is only through joint efforts that we can truly aspire to better new housing developments – good, green, safe, and affordable – which will eventually give birth to the cities we want for the future of our continent.

ISBN 978-88-6216-014-8

Get copies of the book - http://www.iperedizioni.it/dettaglio.aspx?l=119

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Baseline study

The baseline study provides a state of the art at European level on the topic. The main issues which will be addressed by the working group and described in the Baseline are:

1. Governance
In order to be successfully implemented, urban governance requires a number of basic conditions: firstly, a mutual trust between public and private, between citizens and government. Governance implies true participation of stakeholders at all levels, and consultations are needed to assess the needs of everyone involved. In some contexts, this participatory process is not well seen, since in the face of new ideas of urban democracy the city’s government is still a “top-down” process.

Furthermore, a balanced power relationship between local authorities and private investors is needed: in housing development, governance can be impaired by builders who exercise strong economic pressures on the city, and are therefore in the position to strongly influence the outcomes, imposing solutions which are based on profit maximisation only. In some contexts, public limitation to private undertaking is negatively perceived.

Since design coding is a governance tool, it is likely that its implementation could only be feasible in contexts where urban governance is already an established way. One of the tasks of Hopus will therefore be that of outlining the basic governance conditions which need to be in place in order to attempt the implementation of design coding.

2. Design coding and guidelines on housing
Regulations, if drafted and applied in the wrong way, can stifle innovation, force architectural expression and produce monotonous outcomes by reducing possibilities, complicate bureaucratic processes and, in some extreme cases, even lead to illegal building activity. The aims of design coding are exactly the opposite: to speed up and guarantee the outcomes of the process by providing a shared document for both private developers and local authorities, who should use the codes to assess submitted designs.

Another task for Hopus will therefore consist in surveying how design coding and similar forms of project guidance have been successfully or unsuccessfully applied throughout Europe. This will take in special consideration the process through which the implementation has taken place, in order to form a critical understanding of the advantages and disadvantages which design codes actually present.

3. Definition of quality standards for urban and architectural design in housing developments
Being based on quantifiable parameters, environmental efficiency can be quite easily measured, in terms of energy consumption, heating and cooling costs, water recovery, LCA, etc. Urban and architectural quality is more elusive, and, to promote it, it must become a shared and transparent factor, no longer pertaining to specialists only, but to the wider public also. End-users should be fully informed of what they are buying, no less than when they buy produce or meat.

A further task which Hopus could thus set itself is to outline a system of European urban and architectural quality labelling for housing developments. This should take in consideration sustainability standards, but also specific parameters bound to standards of good urban and architectural design, variable depending on local contexts and understanding of quality.


Housing Praxis for Urban Sustainability

Index of Baseline Study

1.     Housing and integrated urban development

    1.1  Housing contemporary Europe

    1.2  Managing today’s cities: urban governance and sustainable development

    1.3  The European perspective on the urban environment and energy

    1.4  Affordable housing and the question of quality

    1.5  Coping with energy costs: sustainable neighbourhoods and fuel poverty

    1.6  Building technology: innovations and strategies for housing construction

    1.7  Guidance tools for housing quality

2.     Design codes: project guidance for housing

    2.1   What is a design code?

    2.2   Design codes: a site-based tool for design principles

    2.3   Using design codes: strengths and weaknesses

    2.4   Making design codes

    2.5   Design coding in practice: European case studies

                  A. New development design codes

                  B. Redevelopment design codes

                  C. Design guidelines

3.     Partner profiles

    3.A  Citera – Centre for Territory, Building, Conservation and Environment,
                   “Sapienza” University of Rome, Italy

    3.B   Otb – Research Institute for Housing, Urban and Mobility Studies,
            Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands

    3.C   Department of Civil Engineering University of Minho, Portugal                

    3.D   Faculty of Architecture, Gdańsk Technical University, Poland

    3.E   City of Reggio CalabriaDastec – Department of Building Art, Science and
            Technique, “Mediterranea” University of Reggio Calabria

4.     In synthesis: tracing the road for Hopus

    4.1          Governance

    4.2          Design coding

    4.3          Quality and the perception of quality

    4.4          Local actions

    4.5          Knowledge and dissemination

    4.6          Conclusion