The course of human development passed a pivotal moment in 2007 when, for the first time in history, over 50% of the world’s population found themselves living in urban, rather than rural settings. With this trend expected to grow to 70% by 2050 according to UN-HABITAT, there is a serious and pressing need to reappraise how we as built environment professionals approach, design and develop housing in high-rise, urban contexts to facilitate positive economic, social and ecological outcomes.[1] As the idea of living together becomes an inevitable kind of modus vivendi, the time is right to consider how our urban habitats originated, what the state of our metropolises are today and where our cities are headed.

About the Analysis

Scratching beneath the surface of this hugely interwoven web of issues around living densely, this research has been structured to enable an unpackaging of the perceptions, the history, and the policies around apartment living:

Perceptions. Seeking to untangle the apparently oppositional sides of ‘dense -v- sparse’, ‘urban -v- suburban’, ‘apartment -v- house,’ exploring these pre-existing contemporary positions on urban density provides a review of whether these oppositions truly are as divergent as they appear and how we can begin to think of cities more holistically, rather than as a polarised decision between two absolutes or worse, an imposed condition without the freedom of choice.

History. Through brief interludes into specific buildings, places and moments in history, this section seeks to identify, perhaps surprisingly, that many of the innovations we associate with modern apartment living today, from urban farming to natural cross ventilation are not modern inventions but are descendants from a long lineage of dense apartment contexts which have always been a part of human settlements and communal living.

Policy. Beginning with a qualitative analysis of apartment design objectives and criteria, a comparison is made between what priorities are similar or different in the guidelines for apartment development form around the globe. Supplementing this analysis is a brief numerical comparison, seeking to establish broadly accepted terms of reference in terms of minimum size and configuration of units.

Potential. Bringing together the conclusions of the three proceeding sections, the final section presents a synthesis of the lessons learned. Not seeking to impose minimum standards or numerical controls, but rather, shows that the heart of the issues examined lie in the mindset of what we think apartments are – investments, not homes. To shift discourse away from this, seven propositions are outlined to open the discussion towards a more holistic approach to apartment design endeavouring to place the human experience, both as individual and as part of an urban community, at the centre of future conversations around apartment design and urban development.

Our Findings

NIMBY -v- YIMBY

Utter the word ‘density’ over any conversation, and you will be apt to receive a multitude of opinions and views. So often, public policy around dense living has been pressed as “the panacea for sustainable living” without any consideration of people’s perceptions, feelings, tensions, and trade-offs which are made in shaping our cities.[2] The one observation we can surmise from these impassioned positions both for and against density is that it is far more than just a statistic. It is far more than the often-used estimations of people per unit of area but speaks to something deeper. Thus, before we can unravel and explore the increasing polarisation between urban and suburban, or indeed whether this dichotomy is even necessary in the context of our cities, we must first ask why this polarisation exists. We must first ask: Why are people so protective of their homes?

The answer to this question is deeply embodied in our experiences of what a home stands for and what it means. Joseph Rykwert, architectural historian and critical theorist reminds us that “Home is where one starts from. That much is obvious. A home is not the same as a house...”[3] He defers to the Jacobean Judge, Sir Edward Coke, who eloquently writes, “The house of everyman is to him as his castle and fortress, as well as his defence against injury and violence, as for his repose.”[4] This view moves us towards an understanding that fundamentally, a home is something more, that it is not just an investment, and not just a physical space, but rather, an integral part of our psycho-social being. It is in fact necessary to recognise that “Dwelling is the capacity to achieve a spiritual unity between humans and things......[and that] places are constructed in our memories and affections through repeated encounters and complex associations...[meaning that] attachment to place is an integral part of being in the world.”[5] Under this umbrella of dwelling being a fundamental part of our experience of the world, the concept of a ‘home’ maybe seen psycho-socially and experientially as comprising three components – “home as haven, home as a site of autonomy and home as a source of social status,” which means:

• Home as Haven – A private space of refuge from the world, offering security both in a physical and a psycho-social sense.

• Home as Autonomy – A place of self-sufficiency and control over its territory so that it can be enjoyed in comfort, peace, and privacy and without interference of others,

• Home as Socio-Cultural Grounding – The home as a starting place from which individuals build and interact with their wider social and cultural communities.[6]

A History of Housing

Architecture which strives to reach for the sky is nothing new. From the fabled Tower of Babel to the Pharaohs’ Pyramids of Egypt, from the Cathedrals of Gothic France and Germany to the glass corporate skyscrapers which grace every major city of the world today, the idea of reaching up has existed since time immemorial. Yet behind all these symbolic buildings of power and prestige stretching vertically was a pairing of residential buildings, reaching upwards instead of outwards and challenging our contemporary notion that living densely is somehow a relatively recent and undesirable phenomenon. From the Roman insulae to the Chinese tulou, from the Parisian pied-a-terre to the Brooklyn tenement, apartments and dense living have in fact been permeating throughout the entire spectrum of history, transcending both cultural and social borders. In some instances, apartments were born more out of necessity than of preference – the result of community protection from external threats of invasion, or the pragmatic needs of limited space and the ever-present pressures of economics. At the same time however, many of the attributes we associate with apartment living today, be it proximity to an economic hub or the vibrance of being near seats of society, culture or politics have also pervaded concepts of urban living throughout history.

A Policy Cross-Section

In the preceding chapters, we have seen the pragmatic and the emotional ties to urban density and apartment living, cast both favourably to facilitate growth and development or with distain in lowering standards of living in our cities. Although in past epochs, many of these developments occurred naturally and were the products of individual architects or unique conditions, apartment design today, like much of contemporary architecture more broadly is governed across different jurisdictions by minimum standards, codes and guidelines. Policy making lies at the core of housing provision across most jurisdictions as a formalised way of developing urban housing. But inevitably a question arises as to whether better design outcomes can in fact be mandated through policies in an ultimately capitalist society. Through codification and the drive to keep construction costs low in American metropolitan centres for example, it has been found that “there is a tendency to rubber-stamp structure’s that have already proven themselves, leading to a formulaic feel.”143 The question then is perhaps twofold – hinging on whether policies can in fact drive better design outcomes but more polemically, whether we can codify and quantify design to guarantee positive outcomes.

7 Propositions for Re-Thinking Urban Density

Moving away from trying to provide a numerical guideline or a design policy, the seven propositions presented here, as an attempt at synthesis of the ideas explored in this project so far, are a call for a shift in mindset towards an experience oriented, spatially aware approach to apartment design, that housing is not a commodity or object, but a thought and an action. Each of the proposed mindset shifts, with their associated principles are centred around addressing a particular status quo problem. This attempt at synthesis is therefore not an exercise in proposing some new criteria or guideline. Rather, as the term synthesis implies, the propositions seek to bring together a broad line of concepts already prevalent in our design processes and design thinking to encourage a shift in mindset and encourage a more wholistic, thoughtful and critical approach to apartment design to affect change and hopefully, to create homes rather than houses.

Resources

/ Full Report (20MB)

/ A Brief Timeline of Urban Housing (20MB)

/ Cross Section of Housing Policies (0.25MB)

/ Seven Propositions to Rethinking Apartments (0.1 MB)

For detailed (high quality prints) of the research published for this project, you can also access all files via the Alastair Swayn Foundation’s Open Research Platform.