Here’s a post based on material originally aimed at a United Kingdom market, but with most certainly a relevance elsewhere, particularly struggling North America.
A winner of the UK’s Neave Brown Award for [Affordable] Housing, architect Peter Barber’s’s low key presence and highly qualified experience offers some useful video opinions about the many shapes that might define a new era of social housing.
For the last couple of years, many housing activists in the United States have wandered on a magical mystery tour in search of a new interpretation of the term ‘social’ housing.
It hardly comes as a surprise that new social housing concepts will need gobs of money to kick-start. Such is the depth of a national housing crisis, however, that growing numbers of governments are experimenting with new visions of social housing1.
The objective is generally clear: government and/or non-profit and/or rental-funded housing that will be accessible and affordable for both lower classes and middle classes. This housing must be equally acceptable to those of any income bracket, not momentary emergency accommodation, but sufficiently delightful to someone looking for a long-term stay.
In the UK, Peter Barber has designed and guided through construction a variety of forms of ‘affordable’ housing. His particular interests focused on social housing within a more committed national framework. Indeed, Barber’s take on unfortunately popular government use of vague, often unaffordable “affordable” definitions is particularly worthy of an airing.
For those who prefer to gather information from conversation rather than print, here’s an intriguing video that aims to capture some of Barber’s experience and views, from Youtube: How To Build Beautiful Social Housing In A Crisis
Footnotes
- For more on the development of social housing in the United States, try: Seattle’s Imaginary ‘Don Quixote’ Set To Tilt At Public Housing Windmills?
