Total Housing

A global survey of innovative high-density residential projects.

Total Housing: Alternatives to Urban Sprawl
Albert Ferre, Tihamer Salij, Actar, 2010 (350 pp., US $25)

Beginning more than a century ago with the Garden City movement, designers have struggled to reconcile the values of community with the desire for a direct connection with nature. Architects of housing have interpreted these ideals differently over time, offering varying expressions of the collective and the individual. Today, the detrimental social and ecological aspects of suburban settlements lend urgency to the production of livable urban environments. Housing not only embodies these large-scale issues but also remains the most personal, elemental area of architecture.

In this context, Actar's new book, Total Housing: Alternatives to Urban Sprawl, is well timed. The hefty paperback presents a series of medium and high-density housing projects from the last 10 years, relating them to the benefits of dense, city living as a whole. Obviously, it is going to take much more than a series of well-designed apartment buildings to make our cities fully viable. But with homes occupying the majority of built urban space, not to mention a central position in our psyche, housing is not a bad place to start.
Spreads from <i>Total Housing</i>
Spreads from Total Housing
Presented as a "design manual," Total Housing surveys 61 projects, arranging them from lowest number of units contained to most. Each project is presented with two or three spreads with color photographs, architectural drawings, and a very brief text. Each entry is intended to promote urban living and to inspire the creation of more dense, well-designed housing.
Spreads from <i>Total Housing</i>
Spreads from Total Housing
Many of the projects are outstanding. The economic wood buildings of Brendeland and Kristoffersen Architekter's Svartlamoen Housing in Tronheim, Norway respond to society's movement away from the typical nuclear family structure; one apartment type is designed to share with a group of friends, the other for a single occupant. Produced in tandem with a new zoning law for a former industrial area, the buildings exaggerate traditional house forms to produce a convincing image of home, a difficult feat for housing of such density. Another excellent project, built in Mulhouse, France by Lacaton and Vassal, uses elegantly spare, low-cost materials from industrial and greenhouse palettes to provide generous, light-filled spaces well beyond those seen in typical social housing. The project directly confronts conceptions of the quality of housing lower-income residents deserve.
Spreads from <i>Total Housing</i>
Spreads from Total Housing
Examined together, the book's high-rise housing projects illustrate the struggle to express individual and collective identity in a building typology that too often trends toward monotonous designs. Two neighboring projects in Madrid by the Dutch firm MVRDV, the Mirador and the Colosia, experiment with volumetric, semi-public spaces to produce the buildings' character. The Mirador features one giant "sky plaza," 40 meters above ground, while the Colosia incorporates a series of more subtle communal patios, connected to private outdoor areas.

While many of the projects included in Total Housing show real innovation, the book's organization distracts from some of its thoughtful content. The works are each tagged using keywords from the 13 housing "virtues" described in the introduction, and are then referenced to each other through notes to "see also: . . ." It would have been interesting to see the projects organized sequentially around the introductory themes, allowing the reader to compare various approaches to contemporary issues in urban housing. It also would have been helpful to include density figures to aid the reader in judging the viability of public transport and other benefits of urban settlement. Lastly, the book could have delved further into urgent concerns specific to housing, such as the tensions between suburb and city and the relation between habitation and identity. Some of the featured projects are most innovative in decorative or formal areas such as façade treatment; while interesting in their own right, these teach us little about housing. Actar's own Global Housing Projects: 25 Buildings Since 1980 (edited by Josep Lluís Mateo and Ramias Steinemann, 2008) offers a more focused urban housing survey.
Spreads from <i>Total Housing</i>
Spreads from Total Housing
Historically, innovations in urban housing architecture mark changes in city life, making contemporary residential design for cities a critical concern. Given the current environmental crises, as well as the dissolution of the public realm, Total Housing reminds us that the need for advancements in urban housing is surely as urgent as ever.
Karen Kubey is a Brooklyn-based writer and researcher on architecture and housing. She graduated from the University of California Berkeley with a bachelor of arts in architecture and received a master in architecture from Columbia University.

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