Improving the quality of suburban building stock is the real task in Europe. In the first few decades after World War II most European countries experienced a large housing shortage due to the consequences of the war, economic migration, and the fast growth of the population. These shortages were tackled with a high level of building activity, the emphasis being on quantity at the expense of quality. In most European countries, these residential areas are very extensive and represent large estates which are very difficult to replace in a short period of time. Urban districts built during that period are normally unable to offer forms of social relations and community life due to the degradation of the communal spaces. One of the main problems of these developments was the minimum attention paid to people’s social and cultural backgrounds and to their traditions. A lack of infrastructure, social services and good urban standards encourages petty crime and alienation, a characteristic already provided by the repetitiveness and anonymity of the buildings. Furthermore, there are many other factors involved in the low quality of buildings. Accessibility is one of the main problems of post-war multi-family housing, because of the lack of elevators or ramps. Moreover, the technical quality is very poor resulting in thermal, acoustic insulation and moist problems: as a result building stock does not usually comply with nowadays energy efficiency standards. Upgrading and refurbishing these estates allows the value of large resources to be reused and increased, and people’s quality of life to be improved. Improvement of the quality of large suburban building estates usually leads to local projects based on specific problems and solutions, which are mostly ineffective. To obtain the best results and achieve maximum value for money, a multi-disciplinary approach must be developed including social, technical and financial tools and integrating all of the factors that influence the quality of urban building heritage, thus looking at them in a broader scope. The main factors involved are measurable and comparative issues like: 1. quantitative technical demands in order to keep up with ongoing changes, for instance the decrease in the average number of persons per dwelling; 2. architectural aspects which include measures for improving the appearance of building blocks; 3. social and safety aspects, taking into consideration intervention schemes focused on scaling down the size of these vast areas, working against anonymity by giving identity to individual building blocks and improving communal life in general; 4. environmental and energy efficiency aspects by promoting the use of renewable sources, sustainable technologies and materials; 5. structural aspects, complying with current requirements for seismic performance; 6. modifications to the use of buildings and multi-functionality to improve the social life of inhabitants; 7. accessibility, mainly considering measures for inserting elevators or enlarging stairways and halls; 8. building process management which involves, for instance, new forms of cooperation between public and private sector on the investments in maintenance and refurbishment programmes.

Innovation in urban and architectural composition practices: the re-qualification/rigeneration project of Ile de Nantes as an example of how uncertainty can be managed ina positive way.

MILAN, ANDREINA;
2012

Abstract

Improving the quality of suburban building stock is the real task in Europe. In the first few decades after World War II most European countries experienced a large housing shortage due to the consequences of the war, economic migration, and the fast growth of the population. These shortages were tackled with a high level of building activity, the emphasis being on quantity at the expense of quality. In most European countries, these residential areas are very extensive and represent large estates which are very difficult to replace in a short period of time. Urban districts built during that period are normally unable to offer forms of social relations and community life due to the degradation of the communal spaces. One of the main problems of these developments was the minimum attention paid to people’s social and cultural backgrounds and to their traditions. A lack of infrastructure, social services and good urban standards encourages petty crime and alienation, a characteristic already provided by the repetitiveness and anonymity of the buildings. Furthermore, there are many other factors involved in the low quality of buildings. Accessibility is one of the main problems of post-war multi-family housing, because of the lack of elevators or ramps. Moreover, the technical quality is very poor resulting in thermal, acoustic insulation and moist problems: as a result building stock does not usually comply with nowadays energy efficiency standards. Upgrading and refurbishing these estates allows the value of large resources to be reused and increased, and people’s quality of life to be improved. Improvement of the quality of large suburban building estates usually leads to local projects based on specific problems and solutions, which are mostly ineffective. To obtain the best results and achieve maximum value for money, a multi-disciplinary approach must be developed including social, technical and financial tools and integrating all of the factors that influence the quality of urban building heritage, thus looking at them in a broader scope. The main factors involved are measurable and comparative issues like: 1. quantitative technical demands in order to keep up with ongoing changes, for instance the decrease in the average number of persons per dwelling; 2. architectural aspects which include measures for improving the appearance of building blocks; 3. social and safety aspects, taking into consideration intervention schemes focused on scaling down the size of these vast areas, working against anonymity by giving identity to individual building blocks and improving communal life in general; 4. environmental and energy efficiency aspects by promoting the use of renewable sources, sustainable technologies and materials; 5. structural aspects, complying with current requirements for seismic performance; 6. modifications to the use of buildings and multi-functionality to improve the social life of inhabitants; 7. accessibility, mainly considering measures for inserting elevators or enlarging stairways and halls; 8. building process management which involves, for instance, new forms of cooperation between public and private sector on the investments in maintenance and refurbishment programmes.
2012
Improving the Quality of Suburban Building Stock - COST Action TU0701
467
472
A. Maahsen-Milan; M. Pellegrino; A. Magnaghi
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Utilizza questo identificativo per citare o creare un link a questo documento: https://hdl.handle.net/11585/121181
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