People and Places x
Regeneration Strategies of Social Housing In Chile: Energy Efficiency Analysis of Three Scenarios of a Type “C” Residential Block
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Waldo Bustamante, Cristian Schmitt
In the late 70's, Chile faced a severe housing deficit and social housing policies developed a mass produced model to respond to the high demand. The massive construction of mid-rise buildings known as Type “C” Blocks had its peak in this period with 202,000 households created. These buildings can be found along most cities in Chile, constituting a significant achievement in housing coverage. However, currently, these apartments present serious issues regarding insufficient built area resulting in illegal self-built expansions; acoustic and thermal insulation deficiencies; poor ventilation; and considerable damage of facilities and public spaces. A diagnosis from the Ministry of Housing shows that this typology has proved to be incapable to meet minimum living standards. Therefore, after overcoming the social housing quantitative deficit, housing policies challenges have orientated on the qualitative deficit of buildings. Currently, initiatives have focused on urban regeneration and proposed new expansions that meet current building codes. This paper analyses the impact of building regeneration strategies in the thermal performance of the envelope. The research methodology is based on computer simulations to evaluate a social housing community in the city of Santiago. The analysis considers three scenarios: the original design; the current situation with illegal self-built expansions; and the expansion proposal from the government policy. Results demonstrate that social housing regeneration strategies may achieve significant heating energy saving and the improvement of indoor thermal comfort conditions. However, strategies proposed by the governmental agencies can be significantly improved by incorporating basic concepts of bioclimatic architecture.
Aging in Place and Urban Planning Practices: Traces of Memory, Peacemaking, and Change - An Urban Portrait Illustrating the Challenges of Communities in Motion
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Fabian Neuhaus
Cities are collective artefacts built on the prospect of shared values, social exchange, and collaboration. The modernist model of the functional city and more recently updated as the service/smart city model does not allow for this collaborative foundation to unfold its potential. One of the most substantial challenges to the service city idea more recently comes in the form of aging in place. The demand to, after decades of residency, remain part of the communities into old age. Politicians, policy makers, and planners struggle to rationalise this concept and implement contextual conditions to facilitate this. The challenges put forward as economic viability and investment opportunities cloud the fact that it is a demand rooted in everyday life, practice, and normality. In a recent community engagement process focusing on aging in place in Calgary, we have been studying how memory, identity, and shared history play a role in the making of an urban environment that enables and supports aging in place. Beyond concepts of “universal design” or “design for all”, aspects of placemaking and shared identity play a crucial role. It has become clear that aging in place is more about participation engagement than physical or technical accessibility. We are proposing a model that fosters co-creation and develops new spatial models around planning processes facilitating aging in place as a process of taking part. Such a model offers the opportunity to engage with new technologies and smart city building block potentially leading to an updated more socially centred functional constructed environment.
The Extraordinary of the Ordinary in Pevidém, Portugal: How to Get Started?
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Cidália Ferreira Silva
This paper explores the first queries embodied in the socio-spatial project in Pevidém. Being one of the most important industrial textile centers of Vale do Ave Territory, this area without limits is located in the municipality of Guimarães, Portugal, and has a population of 15000 people. The project inhabits the space between Architecture-Art-Design-Urbanism to create a methodology of approach to the territory of Pevidém as a learning field. Directed to the transformation of the child, in its alterity and its connectivity with the 'other,' it aims to stimulate the existent space and time dynamics. This project is integrated into the ProChild CoLAB - a Portuguese nationwide consortium with a transdisciplinary approach dedicated to combating poverty and social exclusion in children from 0 to 10 years old.
