The First Verse Of The Raven by Edgar Allan Poe (1845).

Social Housing

I have received a lot of follow up questions and comments to my post about social housing and my opinion that vertical social housing is a dying typology including:

What is Vertical Social Housing? Google didn’t return anything obviously useful.

Hi, different anon, but what impact are you referring to when it comes to vertical social housing?

A dying typology? You are wrong

What is Social Housing? Social housing is affordable housing. A key function of social housing is to provide accommodation that is affordable to people on low incomes. Limits to rent increases set by law mean that rents are kept affordable. 

Vertical Social Housing brings up images of identical towers like the Pruitt–Igoe complex which was composed of 33 buildings of 11 stories each, located on St. Louis. Its demolition was one of the first demolitions of modernist architecture; postmodern architectural historian Charles Jencks called its destruction “the day Modern architecture died." Its failure is often seen as a direct indictment of the society-changing aspirations of the International school of architecture. [via]

In the United States, policies included "urban renewal” and building of large scale vertical social housing projects. Urban renewal demolished entire neighborhoods in many inner cities to accommodate these projects as a solution to the lack of affordable housing; but in many ways, it was a cause of urban decay rather than a remedy.

This type of architecture segregated and isolated its residents from the cities around them. Effectively trapping them in buildings that quickly deteriorated because of poor maintenance and overcrowding. Like in every typology you find some successful examples but many of these projects have been demolished to be replaced by low rise urban infill projects. The idea is to thread social housing into the tapestry of the city instead of creating isolated pockets.

You can read more on how cities have tried to redirect their efforts to provide affordable housing in books like Comeback Cities: A Blueprint for Urban Neighborhood Revival and American Project.

Architecture should not reinforce the old stigma of living in social housing, and architects should find the joy in tight budgets, limited briefs, and seemingly mundane programs.

Here are some recent successful examples of low-rise social housing: 

Le Lorrain – Brussels, Belgium

Honeycomb Apartments – Izola, Slovenia

Monterrey Housing – Nuevo León, Mexico

Vivazz, Mieres Social Housing – Asturias, Spain

Tête en l’air Social Housing – Paris, France

Dorothy Jordan and Gwen Lee - Christmastime 1920s

Architects for Animals: Giving Shelter

In an effort to raise money for FixNation, a non-profit charity that aims to reduce the homeless cat population in Los Angeles by spaying and neutering them, 12 architects and designers have created fun cat shelters for their recently held Architects for Animals: Giving Shelter benefit.

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Peter Jackson’s “The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey” Review : The New Yorker

If anyone can find this for purchase, inform me at once. 

Palmyra Joseph Eid

A year after it was taken by ISIS, the Syrian city of Palmyra was recently retaken by Syrian forces backed by Russian airstrikes. Previously home to many of the world’s most treasured historical sites, many artifacts were destroyed by Islamist ISIS forces in an anti iconoclastic purge. Now, Joseph Eid, a photographer for AFP news agency who took photos of the site just two years ago, has posted before-and-after images of the damage.

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