Visionary ‘Green to Last’ For Next Generation Social Housing?

A rube goldberg style contrapion of wheels and gears and windmills mounted on a pole.
Seems we've stumbled upon a visualization of how Public Private Partnerships (PPPs) work. What about a more visionary approach to affordable housing: something simple, like social housing?

Those who have worked in the business of providing or maintaining social housing inevitably come up against a general public attitude that those in need of public assistance don’t deserve ‘quality.’

Giving in to this belief, in the world of social housing at least, has proven to be profoundly expensive — a cost not only to the public purse, but in terms of human misery.

In the United Kindom’s zeal to repair extensive wartime housing damage, followed by ambitious slum clearance programs, two thirds or more of the population wound up living in social housing. Much of that post-WWII housing, in particular its high rise towers, has been pulled down in the last two to three decades, too poorly constructed to be usefully refurbished.

In the same time frame, America has pulled down much older social housing that was built to last but woefully neglected.

Both are profoundly expensive examples of how corner-cutting design can be disastrously reinforced by public attitudes of who deserves what.1

The housing industry might well argue that there is no alternative to building flimsy structures with a short lifespan, given the cost of land, materials and labour. And that’s before imposing climate-change mandated ‘green’ essentials to the construction.

Is the industry correct? Or do we need more visionary thinking in order to achieve a successful return to social housing in North America?

If so, visionary opportunity is due to arrive on these shores momentarily. Though the article below doesn’t utter a peep about tomorrow’s social housing, the remarkable individual featured therein, together with his work, might represent just what is needed for a new era of government-built housing.

Read more in BISNOW: Meet The 27-Year-Old Who Wants To Build The Tesla Of Housing

Footnotes

  1. For a contemporary American example of this attitude in action, try: Portland Economy Wolves Huff And Puff At Mayor’s Affordable House Of Sticks

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