tHe CRISIS Of HOUSIng aS aRCHIteCtURaL tHeSIS:
EUnIcE SEng
A S S I S TA n T P R O F E S S O R
TEn POInTS OF REFLEcTIOn In LIEU OF A mAnIFESTO
1
4
Dwelling is a place as well as an act. Not to be confused with
Rethink the concept of inhabitation. Of utmost importance is the
house and home, it has its own particular history. The intersection
revival of those empty communal uses – often designated as
between dwelling, house and home, is invariably ideological.1
common space – in public residential projects through innovative
That which differentiates dwelling most from the two is its inher-
types and forms of aggregation. These include accommodation
ent collective nature. Often used interchangeably with the term
for lexible multi-use and multi-generational occupants, as well as
housing, dwelling presupposes a collective deeply embedded in
strategies for mixed typologies that include the actual participa-
the city. Ever a recurring and urgent theme in architecture, it has
tion of residential public use – but not necessarily at the large
undergone and is still undergoing cycles of antagonism
urban scale, so as not to repeat the mistakes of the
with the city. Any project on housing stakes a
earlier modernists who saw the infrastructural
claim on what and how we should live.
reconstruction of the city as the (revolutionary) transformation of the entire
2
society. These would avoid stasis
T
Dwelling manifests the tradiThe
traditional
5
tion and culture of cities.
patterns
and homogeneity, and also
help ight residential ghettos. The design modus
4
associated
with
the
operandi should be a
of
3
permanence
2
residence and to the
thoughtful critique of
inhabitation itself.
homogeneity of fam1
ily links are changing
5
dramatically, to the
Revise
the
extent
density
model
that
what
to
obstruct
the
incorporation
of
housing. The highdensity
XS
used
high-
of new information
high-rise
S
typology is NOT an
for development are
provide
inevitable
M
co-opted
the
basis
It is an argument that
for redevelopment. The
XL
was put forth a century
ago. Over the decades, it
has shifted from being the
XX
L
millennium has witnessed
a shift in social structure of
criterion
for dwelling in cities.
L
to
being
1720

now
cities which has moved beyond
embodiment of a polemic to
paternalistic and humanistic lines.
become a normative standard type
that was solidiied only a few decades
These have direct implications on public
and domestic space.
8
132
ago. To the post-70s generation in Hong
Kong, it is the only model for urban inhabitation. It
3
has subsumed other possible types of urban living into the only
Domestic space as a question of organisation and programme
environment within which we work, dwell, recreate and circulate.
continues to be endorsed by regulations and the resistance of
As the scales tipped in the population-land availability and urban-
users against different conigurations. The dwelling project should
rural ratios, alternative dwelling paradigms are needed as counter-
incorporate programmes, regulations and resistance of users
proposals to the overriding trope of high-density. And as the case
against different conigurations affected by a new material culture
for the high-density high-rise continues to be reinforced by those
that blurs the lines between typologies, materials, construction
with the highest ownership of land rights, alternative collaborative
systems, and parametric thinking in order to intervene de novo
models that resist the tendency for over-specialisation that stiles
the relations between exterior and interior, the visual and tactile,
any critical thinking beyond one’s own ield must be proposed.
the scenographic and tectonic in response to the new culture of the
body.2 The rise of hedonism and the celebration of the individual
at a global scale unknown until recently, is signiicantly redistributing the interests and stakes in the dwelling project. Housing must
be more than a project of hyper-formalism.
6
9
Engage housing – public and private – for the transformation
Regain the critical consciousness that understands architecture
of the city. The dwelling is not an isolated typology; its design,
as a service with responsibilities to the community, committed to
realisation and occupation directly implicate the city – the immedi-
balance and diversity.3 The redeinition of a typological association
ate surroundings and even beyond drawn urban limits. The MTR
with the basic space of the majority of inhabitants who do not have
station-commercial podium-residential/ofice tower typology in
the option of understanding architecture as a conscious or propi-
Hong Kong for example, deines to a large extent the dominant
tious decision, demands the readiness of architects to acquiesce
urban experience of the city. Paradoxically, this nodal distribu-
their roles as designers to the occupants once the initial work is
completed. The act of inhabitation, that is to dwell, is the
tion of density and vertical striation of functions has
design of the everyday domestic environment.
an evening out effect on the city’s urbanism
whereby instantaneous themed interiors
2
15
2
10
and districts seem to be the most
Embrace the expanded role of the
straightforward means of inject-
architect and identify the limi-
ing difference. In response to
tations of binary constructs
the top-down prescription
(public
of identity, the reciprocal
relationship
private,
vidual, young versus
the dwelling and the
environment
versus
communal versus indi-
between
old,
from
single
family…)
which it arises and
so
versus
as
to
imposes upon must
avoid oversimpliica-
be comprehensively
tion,
studied on a spec-
and
trum of scales.
and
generalisation
stereotype
subject
to
critique.
7
Pursue
a
from
research-
them
productive
Refrain
unequivocal
focused approach and
nostalgia but harness
investigate architecture
its potential for agency
to
offer
the
in development and the
content
recuperation of meaningful
and material with which
spaces in the city.
to update regulations and
criteria, as well as to propose
the productive possibilities of these
AY
ESS
constraints on dwelling design. Just as
lifestyles and expectations of our environment are continually evolving with urban development, the limits of housing should be subject to continual if not
periodic reappraisal.
8
Deepen the understanding of the concept of sustainability. With
the s-word now already a catchphrase and the approval of any
project that claims to be sustainable receiving a nod of approval,
it is all the more important not to merely continue the rhetoric or
fulil a checklist. Instead, the incorporation of sustainable methods, processes and building practices in dwelling design should
be interrogative and elucidate deeper spatial structures concealed
in the complex of traditions and routines, codes and regulations.
1
Briish architectural theorist Reyner Banham’s 1965 essay ‘A Home is not a House’ was a polemical statement against
monumentality: the house as a minimal membrane of enclosure, dematerialised of all but its essenial mechanical services.
The sairical wriing represented his shit from sharing the new Brutalist tendencies with the Smithsons to embracing the
technological populism of Buckminster Fuller. The underlying thesis of Briish architectural criic marin Pawley’s 1971
Architecture versus Housing is the divergence between the ideas on and pracice of architecture and housing. Pawley argued
that the former was pursued by architects who focused on concepts of mobility, systemisaion and lifestyle as the bases of
a soluion to the crisis whilst the later was predominantly undertaken by governments who introduced publicly inanced
building projects which were in many cases inadequate, proving that the funcionalist approach in design had failed to
express the social and individual needs of the inhabitants. The situaion remains more or less the same to this day.
2
The necessary synthesis of these opposiional aitudes towards design was called upon by Kenneth Frampton in his essay
“Towards a criical Regionalism: Six Point for an Architecture of Resistance” and re-stated in subsequent expanded versions
of the essay. See Hal Foster ed. The Ani-Aestheic: Essays on Postmodern culture. new york: The new Press, 1998, 17-34.
See also K. Frampton, “Ten Points on an Architecture of Regionalism: A Provisional Polemic,” center 3: new Regionalism
(1987), 20-27. Reprinted in canizaro ed., Architectural Regionalism: collected Wriings on Place, Idenity, modernity, and
Tradiion (new york: Princeton Architectural Press, 2007), 385.
3
This crucial point is taken almost directly from Juan Herreros’ 2007 manifesto on public housing and I believe it needs to
be enunciated in every architectural manifesto on dwelling. Juan Herreros, “Public Housing and Space: A manifesto,” in José
maría de Lapuerta ed. collecive Housing: A manual (Barcelona: Actar, 2007), 14-21.
Almost 20% of the year’s thesis projects are proposals on dwell-
cies of those housing specialists were shared by local governments
ing.4
This gradual rise in projects responding to the housing
who, not unlike their western counterparts, accepted the role of
question over the last ive years indicates a growing awareness
the government as necessary in the arena of housing the majority
amongst architectural students of the extent to which architecture
of the population. The setting up of public housing bodies in Asian
and the dwelling impact the urbanism of our cities; and perhaps
countries coincided with this deinitive mid-century establishment
even the realisation that contemporary housing exigencies call for
of paternalistic (if not autocratic) governments. The government’s
a rethinking that can only begin from within the academy.
taking over of the citizenry’s right to housing en masse signiied
the relegation of a crucial aspect of living to a small selected group
The crisis of housing as a problem concerning architec-
who would from that point on determine the individual’s
ture was called forth by architects in Europe
right to decide where to live, what to live in and
more than a century ago as an occasion
how to live.
to redirect the profession towards
a more universal outlook. The
The
chasm
between
public
T
minimum dwelling became the
and
was
5
site for innovation, the block
deepened
housing
with
the
establishment of the Hong
4
the site of revolution. Not
privately-built
only was the domestic
Kong Housing Author3
typology of house put
ity in 1973. This split,
which also exists in
2
forward as a problem
in its inadequacy to
other cities that have
1
respond to density
a
public
housing
and
authority,
becomes
economy,
and
elements
interior
other
the context within
of
the
which
architects
were
all
work.
Architects
XS
plan
the
called into question.
‘innovate’ within this
S
of
more
these
radical
binary
architects
ally in straight lines) the
L
exploded the house and
reconigured/repackaged
ive
XL
as
points of architecture, glass
utility
boxes and factory-made massproduced objects. The aggregation
of dwelling – from unit to block to city
– was reconsidered within the framework of
standardisation, eficiency and maximum utility.
and
typology.
In
this context where the other
L
components
dots of density, eficiency,
XX
the
framework
which connected (liter-
M
The
split – between the interior and
exterior – is seldom questioned,
Architect
Gary
Chang’s
‘Domestic
Transformer’ is to date the most celebrated
example of an innovative response to the Hong
Kong public housing environment as a window into an urbanism of
The crisis of housing as a critical project of modernism did not go
the high-density high-rise. His own 344 square feet lat could be
away. Wartime and post WWII exigencies called for reactionary
transformed into 24 room conigurations to cater to his personal
measures and provided the contexts for the realisation of many
demands on his domestic lifestyle. Another oft-mentioned exam-
housing experiments that actively engaged the fourth dimen-
ple of a personal response to the housing crisis is the Wandering
sion – time.5 At an international scale, the crisis of housing was
Home project by artist Kacey Wong. Meant originally as a mobile
re-conjured in full force by the United Nations in the early 1970s
home unit for himself – the three feet by four feet aluminium and
following the 1973 Conference on the Environment in Stockholm.
zinc-clad structure built atop a tricycle – Wong saw the potential of
The humanitarian lens was focused on the Third World nations (by
his creation as “an architectural solution for the homeless people
the millennia they contained more than 85% of the world popula-
in the city.” There is a marked difference in their deinition of the
tion). That the majority of these territories were newly decolonised
crisis however, in their exposition of what is at stake. For Chang,
nations was a signiicant aspect of the crisis. The crisis identiied
the architect-designer-dweller is a highly trained individual who
by their counterparts in the West half a century earlier was recur-
would be able to make the best of the condition of tight spaces to
ring at a magniied scale and intensity in the developing nations
maximise their potential for variety of living. Artist-cum-activist
of Africa, Asia and Latin America.6 This time the colonial gaze had
Wong, on the other hand, questions the right for an individual to
shifted towards a post-colonial one – the strong humanist tenden-
dwell in the city. Meanwhile, architects working directly with the
government or housing societies to ‘solve’ the problem of housing
question of space at its centre. And at its base, a thesis treats
focus on updating the older versions of the lat, the block and the
its subject with suspicion, yet the process provides a kickback
estate; at the same time responding to the changing demograph-
mechanism that allows (even necessitates) the student to prove
ics of those in line for public housing. It seems little could be done
himself/herself wrong along the way without compromising the
within the architect’s scope of work for those ineligible for public
project; more often than not, even strengthening it. Ultimately,
rental lats and who could not afford private options.
innovation in form and technique that arises from a reformulation
of the problem (or rather, question) concerning habitation is still
History has shown us that the most innovative projects on hous-
deeply social and political. The multifold aspects of housing has
long since been highlighted by those who studied them
ing were produced in response to some kind of crisis.
– architects, urban planners, engineers, health
Besides standalone prototypes to highly-customised houses to exhibition housing at
and sanitation engineers, geographers,
00
22
social
expositions to visions that remained
precedent
projects
where
architects
redeine
the
crisis
reformulated
and
‘dwelling’
or
‘Art,’
‘Home’
new
and
to
and
ble link between ‘building,’
to discover alternative
approaches
economists
had dwelled on the inextrica-
similar questions so as
perspectives
scientists,
politicians – including those who
on paper, there are countless
and
who
and
brought
insights
questions
the
‘thinking’
‘House’
to
and
old
questions of where
problems. The crux
we live, what we
of the matter is not
live in, and how we
the provision of the
live... The post-80s
right solution but in
generation
the consideration of
of
ar-
chitects-in-training,
the problem, in ask-
whilst not witnessing
ing the most urgent
the
massive
and/or relevant ques-
move-
tion: to problematise.
ment of the population
Therefore, the education
to public housing estates,
of an architect is to equip
has inherited to a large
one with the necessary skills
extent the same belief in
eficiency and economy as the
to embark on his/her quest for
a critical and thoughtful response to
main driving forces behind housing
AY
ESS
design. And it is precisely this accept-
the question of space, which is ever at
stake.
ance that provides the motivation behind the
architectural thesis, irst and foremost, as the very
status quo to be challenged. After all, woe beholds a city where
students’ projects do not rethink the crisis or reopen ‘the box’ but
resemble those that are already being built or proposed in the
city. Likewise, absolute coherence between the academy and the
market (developer) would misdirect the crisis to that simply of
4
There is a substanial increase in the number of thesis proposals on dwelling in the last four years – from 5-7% to almost
20% in the 2010-2011 class.
the student a personal response to an observation or an issue that
5
many architectural journals dedicated enire issues to the theme of housing and crisis, paricularly providing the plaform
for the discussion and showcase of post-war housing ideas and projects. See, “The new House 194X…,” Architectural Forum,
v. 77 (Sep. 1942): 65-152. The Editors, “Housing in crisis: mr. Wyat’s program bogs down in controversy,” Architectural
Forum (Apr. 1946): 93-101. There were also many aricles, including more recent ones that ofer criical insights on post-war
housing. See for example, “An essay by students on post-war housing,” Architect and building news, v. 167 (Aug. 15, 1941):
100-102. “Emergency housing: emergency housing for refugees and in soluion of immediate post-war housing problems,”
RIBA Journal 3rd ser., v. 48, (may 1941): 119-121. “Innovaive invasions (post-war housing),” Architects’ journal, v.184, n. 29
(July16 1986): 37-50. nicholas Bullock, “Ideals, prioriies and harsh realiies: reconstrucion and the Lcc, 1945-51,” Planning
perspecives, v.9, n.1 (Jan. 1994): 87-101. Richard Plunz and michael Sheridan, “Deadlock Plus 50: on public housing in new
york,” Harvard design magazine (Summer 1999): 5-9. Peter malpass, “Warime planning for post-war housing in Britain:
the Whitehall debate, 1941-5,” Planning perspecives, v.18, n.2 (Apr. 2003): 177-196 It is important to note that whilst the
insights were predominantly local and speciic, the issues raised are undoubtedly perinent in other sites and cultures.
“Developing prototypes for France’s mass housing programme, 1949-53,” Planning perspecives, v.22, n.1 (Jan. 2007): 5-28.
must be considered and tested through architectural methods.
6
the question of typology and form. Worse yet, it could remove the
critical element completely by simply rehashing the old rhetoric of
public and private space. Conversely, innovation that arises from
critical relection of the status quo is ever pressing.
Inherently a critical and relexive process with an in-built mechanism for individual thought, the architectural thesis demands of
It challenges the student to sustain a line of questioning that
must be intellectually, visually and verbally articulated, with the
See for example, T.J. manickam, “Housing crisis in the East,” Urban and Rural Planning Thought, v. XIv, n. 1 (Jan. 1971):
1-61. concerns for the housing crisis in the east took on an internaional dimension that saw a momentary climax in 1976.
See, Tom Fookes et al. “Perspecives on Habitat: The United naions conference on Human Setlements,” Ekisics, v.42, n.252
(nov. 1976). Also, “Building Types Study 488: Human Setlements,” Architectural Record (may 1976).