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Assignment 3 Reflection:

I was overall happier with my presentation this time around I feel I was more able to communicate the ideas around the functionless space and the user defined concept that really drives the project.

The comments from my panel centred around what was the ultimate point of the project:

Was it to critique to current state of residential architecture and the current economic landscape of Australia’s affordable housing crisis.

Or was it to provide a solution to this Housing Crisis by offering a look at new more communal ways of living through an analysis of minimal dwelling.

This gives me a good question to answer over the break, as this line of inquiry into residential architecture began with my frustration with working in the sector and finding that good design seemed to be only realistically available to the upper quintile of earners.

I will use to break to look back over my precedents and reflect upon where I ultimately want this project to end up. I feel I have a good base of research direction, I just need to make this final decision and follow it through next semester.

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Assignment 2 Reflection:

Upon reflecting on my presentation for the second assignment, I found that I was unhappy with my overall presentation. Looking back over the slides and listening to the recording I became aware that crucial parts of the project weren’t explained well. I have had concerns about the lack of design currently involved in my project which led to too much time being dedicated to trying to justify the grid at the expense of other crucial parts of the project:

- The tenets don’t own an apartment they own a share of the building, and therefore do not own a certain square on the grid but rather can set up a minimum dwelling wherever as long as it complies with the rules.

- The effect of a shared ownership is that the building exists outside of the property market so buying into the building never becomes unaffordable.

- The Architecture without Architects: This is a concept that I have failed to adequately explain, yet feel is imperative to the success of this project. A lot of the early thinking of the project revolved around the role of the architect and the fact that the design process has become too expensive something that only the upper quintiles of earners can afford. Shifting the design onto the tenets is a way to achieve 

- Modularity: Modular design has a stigma to it and doesn’t exactly gel with the functionless, end user designed project I am trying to achieve. However Open Source Modularity, similar to Open Structures is perfect for allowing the tenets to achieve an outcome that can suit any site.

Markers comments:

Singapore HDB Housing: 

While looking into Singapore’s housing model was very interesting there are compatibility problems as a precedent between it and my project. Singapores ownership boasts 80% ownership rates for its citizens, which is incredible and something that would be an ideal outcome from this template. However this is achieved through the Singapore government owning all of the land and controlling the real estate market which is essentially impossible in Australia. Additionally, as the government controls the housing they set the rules on who gets what, creating class systems and social injustice; eg. gay marriage is not allowed.

The template I am trying to create is meant to be achievable by any group of people that band together to erect this building on any site as long as the $ numbers work.

Cryptocurrency / NFT’s:

I have spent some time researching cryptocurrencies and have struggled to find a useful link between them and this project. However I do think that the two are analogous:

- They were born out of a loss of confidence in the existing system,

- They exist outside of the system,

So far I have been unable to find some thing that I can implement directly into the project.

Moving Forward:

- Distill the project

- Potentially add second site to show difference a different context would make to the end result

- Begin to focus on the co-living / shared space of the project, there should be a focus on the community that a building like this would enjoy

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To speak of the Australian home today is to speak of exceeding unaffordability and housing shortages for the bottom quintiles of earners. But it is also at the heart of a national conversation about wage stagnation, levels of debt, social in equality and the way we live.

Since the 1970s our lifestyle has been funded by credit linked to household equity, as property prices have increased so has the level of debt, which in turn replaced wage growth.

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Archizoom - No Stop City

Theoretical Project of Functionless Space.

Structural Grid / Circulation / Services / Amenities

End User Defined.

Architecture as Infrastructure

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The Spatial City (Ville spatiale) is an unrealized theoretical construct inspired by the housing shortage in France during the late 1950s and by Yona Friedman's deep belief that housing plans and structures should allow for the free will of the individual inhabitants.

The framework was to be erected first, and the residences conceived and built by the inhabitants inserted into the voids of the structure. The layout of each level would occupy no more than fifty percent of the overall structure in order to provide air and light to each residence as well as to the city below. 

Functionless housing framework that allows for free will of the individual inhabitants. End user defined.

Constrained by superior order - Grid

Implemented rules; no more than fity percent of the overall structure could be occupied to allow for air and light.

Evolutionary process to find correct vernacular for each site.

The design is only realized and perfected through use.

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Metabolists

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Image One: Gap Housing - Student Work Yi Yang 

Image Two & Three: A House for Month - Dogma, Featured in Home Economics Five New Models for Domestic Life for the Venice Architectural Biennale 2016

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Feasibility Study:

This study is to see wether pushing the outlined planning bodies controls to their maximum could achieve the desired result of the brief; to provide affordable housing to the lowest income earners.

Site Area: 2,000 m2 approximately 

Floors: 10 - 6 Residential, 2 Commercial, GF & Roof

Average Floor Plate Area: 1,060m2

Land Value: $6,000,000 

Stamp Duty: $360,000 

Construction Cost: $34,000,000 @ $3,500/m2 

Loan Amount: $40,360,000

Loan Term: 50 years

Fixed Interest Rate: 5%

Total Interest Paid Over Term: $69,500,000

Total Loan Repayments: $109,798,523

Weekly Loan Repayments: $42,300

Rentable Commercial Space: 2,280m2

Rental Return Per Week: $16,500 @ $375/m2/year

Number of Residential 'Units': 216

Yearly Fees per 'Unit': $1,000

Weekly Rent per 'Unit': $138.20

Weekly Rent per Double 'Unit': $184.26

Weekly Rent per Triple 'Unit': $414.60

The outcome of this study shows that a more progressive approach, that lies outside the constraints of the planning guidelines will be needed to satisfy the design brief.

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Planning

The three main planning legislations pertaining to my project and site are:

1. SEPP 65 (State Environmental Planning Policy No 65 - Design Quality of Residential Apartment Development)

2. Boarding Houses Act 2012

3. Newcastle DCP 2012, Section 3.03 Residential Development

There appears to be several issue with complying with these three legislations and achieving the project goal of providing affordable housing for the Q1 and Q2 population in terms of:

- Car parking

- Privacy

- Minimum apartment sizes

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Alternative Development & Ownership Models

Cognitive control over a place does not require ownership in a limited legal sense, but rather agency. Closing the gap between the function and meaning of housing, between the financial instrument and the location of one's innermost residence would be a good place to start. - Eddie Blake, Homesickness

Model 1: Business as Usual

Notes: Developer makes 20% profit before overheads & corporate costs

Market Affordability: 100%

Model 2: Nightingale Model

Notes: High buy-in purchase price, not for profit

Market Affordability: 75%

Model 3: Ground Lease

Notes: No equity building, hard to find sites, ultra-durable construction

Market Affordability: 50%

Model 4: Jack Self; The Ingot Derivative Architecture

Notes: Equity built through share system, ultra-durable construction

Market Affordability: 30%

In order to meet affordable housing goals and alleviate "financial stress", we need to push debt into the very long term. Despite paying more over the term of the loan, the lower repayments give greater freedom to the occupants whilst necessitating best practice construction to outlast the loan term.

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Wickham, Newcastle

The most important form of exclusion these days is in housing: who gets to live in a city? - Suketu Mehta Maximum City

Newcastle, due to being underdeveloped and with increased funding from the government is rapidly urbanising. However, Newcastle has among the greatest shortages of affordable and available supply of housing for Q1 and Q2 households. Due to this it is imperative that Newcastle implement strategies to not exclude this population from the city centre.

I have chosen the suburb of Wickham as the location for my site as it characterises the changing Newcastle and current housing market as a whole. Whilst also having a rich history that reflects the progression of Australian dwelling. Newcastle City Council released in the Wickham Master Plan in 2017 that outlined increased height and density controls as well as a future metropolis vision for the suburb. Developers have already begun to taken advantage of the relaxing of restrictions, with several high rise apartment buildings already being approved and constructed. My chosen site is one that will most likely be purchased and developed using the standard model in the near future.

Sources: Wickham Master Plan 2017, Newcastle City Council

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Precedent Study: Cenobium - Jack Self 2015

At the urban scale the project pursues a strategy of disenclosure - striving to blur property boundaries, remove physical barriers, deconstruct the hierarchy of the street and weaken the numeration of citizens. Cenobium proposes a housing typology against individuation and ownership. A central core supports steel beams and a composite floor system that dissolves the slab, while structurally independent facades and circulation permit reconfiguration through time to move from single units to communal spaces. The individual dwelling consists of two spaces divided by the core into which is fitted every necessary piece of furniture and amenity. This relation promotes use over ownership. 

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Theory

The Minimum Dwelling - Karel Teige 1932

Collective dwellings are structures and design solutions of a higher quality than existing housing of the family-centered households type, and they are in stark conflict with the existing perception of the family as the primary social unit and the main- stay of the dominant family ideology. Collective housing represents the negation of existing forms of housing, best represented by family-based apartment house types in urban rental building.

All these houses with all their technical luxury and radical design devices, with all their formal originality, are really nothing other than new versions of opulent baroque palaces, that is, seats of the new financial aristocracy. A machine for living? No, a machine for representation and splendor, for the idle, lazy life of the bosses playing golf and their ladies bored in their boudoirs.

The housing question is a problem of statistics and technology, as is any question concerning the provision and satisfaction of human needs: it is a question of the determination of social needs and their satisfaction by rationalized mass production, the elimination of inefficiencies without loss of energy, and the elimination of detrimental effects caused by the combined forces of resistance, represented by the exploitative practices of the middlemen of business, by rent and land speculation, and so on.

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Project Overview and Brief

Debt is indeed central to understanding and combating neoliberalism. As Neoliberalism has, since its emergence been founded on a logic of debt. Which reduces the future and its possibilities to current power relations. - Maurizio Lazzarato, The Making of the Idebted Man

To speak of the Australian home today is to speak of exceeding unaffordability and housing shortages for the bottom quintiles of earners. But it is also at the heart of a national conversation about wage stagnation, levels of debt, social inequality and the way we live.

Since the 1970s our lifestyle have been funded by credit linked to house hold equity, as property prices have increased so has the level of debt, which in turn replaced wage growth.

The brief for this project is to create true affordable housing in inner city conditions for the lower quintiles of income earners that is capable of relieving this population from a life of financial servitude and restructuring contemporary social power relations. In order for this architecture to exist in its capitalist context it must be financially profitable. This will be achieved through looking at alternative forms of dwelling, ownership and property development.

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On Architecture

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Affordable Private Rental Housing In Australia

The Biggest Increase in private rental supply nationally 2011-2016 has been in mid-market rentals that are affordable by Q3-Q5 households. Q1 and Q2 Households face an acute shortage of affordable supply nationally of 212,000 dwellings, up from 187,000 in 2011. This shortage for Q1-Q2  households increases to 305,000 when occupation of the limited affordable stock by higher income Q2-Q5 households is taken into account. Most Q1 & Q2 households are living in unaffordable rental housing: 80 percent nationally and 89 percent in metropolitan areas.

Sources:

Graph One: Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute, The Supply of Affordable Private Rental Housing in Australian Cities: Short-Term and Longer-Term Changes 2019

Table One: Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute, The Supply of Affordable Private Rental Housing in Australian Cities: Short-Term and Longer-Term Changes 2019