Share This Article
Affordable housing pertains to developed housing units for a section of society, catering to their basic needs within the economically set budget. It often includes essential amenities like running water, sanitation, and proximity to public transportation while creating stable communities.
The main elements of low-cost housing are necessity, quality, and majorly low cost. This helps the overall construction to provide functional spatial layouts in the houses to achieve a good quality of living in today’s urban environment through low construction costs.
These budget-friendly homes are innovatively designed balancing sustainability, functionality, aesthetics, cost, quality, and social engagement with the help of developing technology and creative architects.
1. Quinta Monroy, Iquique
- Project: Quinta Monroy
- Location: Iquique, Chile
- Architect: Alejandro Aravena, Elemental
- Year of completion: 2003
- Area: 5000 m2
Quinta Monroy is the social housing development initiated to accommodate almost 100 families. The project aimed to avoid relocating families and to provide them with the opportunity to improve their homes over time. A budget of only 7,500 USD per family allowed for building only 36 square meter houses, half the size of a standard middle-class house. These issues were battled by efficiently using the land, extending houses to prevent overcrowding, and self-build processes. Families were given half of a good house equipped with quality services, and they were offered technical support to carry out the extensions on their own. The main structure was made of reinforced concrete cement to provide a stable and strong foundation.
2. Via Verde, New York City
- Project: Via Verde
- Location: New York City, USA
- Architect: Dattner Architects and Grimshaw Architects
- Year of completion: 2012
- Area: 290,000 sqft
Via Verde provides its residents with a quality of life in the urban environment through its sustainably affordable residential housing development strategy. The Green Way reflects a public commitment to creating the next generation of social housing for sustainable and healthy living.
These 222 economical housing options are flexible in layout and arranged in three distinct building types – a 20-story tower, a mid-rise duplex apartment component, and townhouses. Every apartment is provided with water and energy conservation fixtures along with low VOC finishes and ample cross-ventilation and daylight. Having social sustainability as its key feature, it offers residents the opportunity for social interaction, which in turn fosters a sense of community and vitality and aligns with the city?s Active Design Guidelines.
With sustainability and longevity as key, the concept of standard, cost-effective structural systems and a prefabricated, high-performance rain screen, kept the project within its strict budget. The complex achieved its LEED NC Gold certification owing to its features :
- green roofs and interiors
- integrated photovoltaic systems
- community vegetable gardens
- rainwater harvesting
- onsite CHP
- drought-tolerant vegetation
3. Empower Shack, Cape Town
- Project: Empower Shack
- Location: Cape Town, South Africa
- Architect: Urban Think Tank and Ikhayalami
- Year of completion: 2016
- Area: 38m2 – 84m2
Designed specifically for the South African slums, Empower Shack is a multi-unit residential affordable housing. Combining the innovations and strategies of the two teams, this project answers South Africa’s housing shortage. These affordable housing solutions are two-story high vertical buildings, typically made of wood and iron sheeting. This transformative design not only provides affordable shelter but empowers communities by involving them in the construction process, which not only reduces labour costs but also fosters a sense of ownership and pride among the residents.
Adaptability and scalability are maintained with modularity as the project’s key element. Made of concrete block walls, Empower Shack 2.0 has the addition of a kitchen unit and a floating slab. These shacks are designed to be safe and expandable for their cost.
4. 26th Street Low-Income Housing, Santa Monica
- Project: 26th Street Low-Income Housing
- Location: Santa Monica, USA
- Architect: Kanner Architects
- Year of completion: 2008
- Area: 25,000 sqft – 100,000 sqft
This multi-unit housing consists of 44 units designed taking into account the region?s mild climate, historical precedents of Southern California Modernist architecture, and the human scale of residents and pedestrians.
It is organized linearly to facilitate maximum cross-ventilation and incorporates dual-glazed and laminated windows along both street-facing sides to eliminate street noise. The subterranean parking keeps cars off the street and the dry wells dug beneath collect and disperse rainwater. The warm brown clapboard siding, a checkerboard pattern of shaded balconies, and colourful side walls make all residents feel like they have their own house. The overall construction cost was $200 per square foot.
The project bagged the AIA Honor Award and the AIA National Housing Award in 2008, making it the product of an ‘exhaustive community outreach mission’.
5. Black & White Twins, Blaricum
- Project: Black & White Twins
- Location: Blaricum, Netherlands
- Architect: Casanova+Hernandes Architects
- Year of completion: 2012
- Area: 3440 m2
The Black and White Twins is a refreshing contemporary design of 29 affordable units within a compact structure of four levels. Conceptually divided into two parts, the building contains an outer black skin perforated with windows and voids that wrap around the inner part of the building, while open-air spaces are painted white. Every floor plan is unique and, although the apartments share common principles, differences and repetition are interlinked within a single entity. The architects aimed to create a sustainable and energy-efficient structure while respecting the local traditions and also promoting a sense of community among the residents.
The highlighted projects in this article reflect on the multidisciplinary aspects of affordable housing. It shows how affordable housing goes beyond just shelter for one, but also pays importance to innovation and sustainability, indirectly contributing to social interaction and community integration. These accessible housing alternatives create internally distinctive housing based on varied requirements and combat the ?one-size-fits-all? approach. Affordable housing units today are more than just a functional and safe place to reside in, it takes on collaborative team efforts to combine affordability with quality, community, and sustainability which are crucial for effective and innovative solutions.