Keeping up with the Johansens
The willow-the-wisp of cost savings aside those who self-procure their homes would seem to have more freedom than the clients or customers of other sectors to get the homes they want; rather than what they are offered. So product satisfaction would seem an important aspect in the mix, however, perhaps the greatest payback for this sector would seem to be neighborhood satisfaction. If self-procurement is enabled at a large scale it offers the chance to hothouse communities.
If you or your next-door neighbour or the chap up the road not only built all the houses in your street, but also the bin-store, or planted the trees in the pavement outside the sense of community ownership is enormous. Building together means you will get the chance to know each other. Most people in London have, in recent years, seen well meaning, quite well designed, quite well built social housing schemes grit blasted in short order by the disaffected children of the very people who live there, not because they don’t necessarily care, but because they might not know who’s children they are, and because it is not their job to pick up after them.
Neighbourhoods take quite a long time to develop, perhaps the social speed dating of combined endeavor is required if a neighbourhood spirit is to be fostered before our society’s toxic parenting practices kill the ’hood in-vetro. It’s not just an issue of getting a “nice new neighbourhood” it might be the only way to get a “new neighborhood” full-stop right now. Of course we hope that the Thames Gateway will be socially fantastic, but it looks rather like chucking thousands of souls into a hamster hutch and telling them to get on with it.
Vauban is a German Housing development were the locals population, government and Housing Associations, and student Union Housing organizations appear, in our view, to have got something drastically right.
It is a new district on a 38 hectare former barrack site in south Freiburg. The Planning for the district started in 1993, the third and final development phase is due for completion in 2006. It will eventually form a home for some 5000 inhabitants, and 600 jobs. It’s all the things one would expect these days, low energy, pretty much car-free and dense, this is achieved by not allowing detached development on the site, though not too dense as a maximum four stories are allowed for each building and priority is given to smaller group development, i.e. no strip block nonsense.
What is interesting about this scheme is the manner in which the local city authority, (who happens to be the site owner), sought to create a socially diverse city district in a participatory manner enabling individuals and groups to self-procure their own homes. The initial stages of the development consisted of an urban design competition for a masterplan and implementation strategy. A group of local citizens formed an organization called Forum Vauban. They were recognized by and financially supported the city of Freiburg as a legal body forming a sort of client (i.e. home-builders), reach-out, and co-ordination, training and representative body. They offered help with information exchanges and events to help inform self-builders; ran practical DIY seminars and information on energy saving, and offered advice on design and cost management in respect of these issues for some of the projects.
At the other end of the scale the city recognized that by empowering this organization with embedded local officials dealing with Planning, road and building standards as advisers Forum Vauban could shorten the time it took to review and agree the multiplicity of individual and group building proposals. In fact this organization went on to drive standards for design, green space, amenity and social policy and energy efficiency, were they were particularly successful. There are over 50 passive houses and at least 100 units with “Plus energy” standards, the completed projects generally exceed the pretty strict energy criteria originally set down in the development plan organized by the City.
One of the development goals at Vauban is the creation of a variety of housing catering for a balance of social groups. One of the drivers for this was the creation of Baugruppen, (small, one off building co-operatives). Several households get together, decide on a plot of land to purchase within the master plan (typically 10 – 15 units), often hiring an architect and building team to assist in the design and construction process. The cost savings generated by this co-development approach, in terms of fees, economies of scale and building materials etc. over individual self-procurement allowed larger numbers of lower income households to participate in the scheme. Social interactions through the planning and building process help to knit community before any one moves in- it’s a sort of “bake and shake neighbourhood”.
These Baugruppen in turn had the practical assistance of a Citizens’ Building Stock Corporation, (The Buergerbau), set-up in order to coordinate their efforts. The corporation offers a range of services throughout the project development, right up to the moment when the self-builders move into their houses. These services include guiding the building group and answering any questions during planning and contract periods, acting as centralized QS and Clerk of works, ensuring that the generally agreed standards for the scheme are met in the most efficient manner, ‘enabling’ in its broadest and most constructive sense. This organization currently manages 5 co-operative housing groups in the development.
What this settlement shows is a political will. Local Government behaving like government, giving a lead for it’s citizens, enabling them, but perhaps more then these two points, trusting them to make their own decisions about what they want and need in terms of housing. Backing them, empowering them through training, helping them organize, and then letting them get on with it like a bunch of grown-ups.
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