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Low cost housing
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NEO
Sun May 28 2006, 10:10am Print
Admin Registered Member #4 Joined: Thu Aug 04 2005, 04:54am
: Dhaka
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mujtaba
Sun May 28 2006, 09:24pm
Registered Member #14 Joined: Tue Sep 20 2005, 08:54pm
: Honolulu, HI
Posts: 35
 My thoughts:
Affordable housing for the low-income group involves several inter-related issues. These include

land and its location: only peripheral low-lying under developed land is affordable for these type of projects, which adds greater transportation costs and poor surroundings and lower environmental quality (mosquito, flash flooding, etc.)

socio-economic conflicts: better-offs resist the setting up of slums in their neighborhoods so the natural location is a low-lying, low priced site (associating with low quality environment)

Subsidy: the government of a third world country does not have enough resources to subsidize land and house building activity for low income groups. For private agencies, this is not profitable.

Services: integral to initial building cost and high density of land use, services such as water suppy, minimal electricity, cooking-fuel and seweage disposal are critical. Quality of life depends as much on these as on the actual "house form, cost of building and structure" itself. In other-words, services are more important than architecture.

Social customs: assuming all the pre-conditions of land, water and services are met, self-help housing would most probably be the best type. More importantly locally produced, with traditional local technology will have the highest probabilities of success.

Usage: currently slum dwellers use about 891 persons per acre, which is a gross figure and includes roads and other areas, not exactly actual usable space in buildings. Meaning the actual intensity of use might be much higher (less than, 50sft per person).

Custom: the image of the slum regenerates itself. This image needs to be changed. Appropriate technologies for improvement would be the most ideal.

Add to these later. Cheers - Mujtaba
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NEO
Mon May 29 2006, 07:55am
Admin Registered Member #4 Joined: Thu Aug 04 2005, 04:54am
: Dhaka
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mujtaba
Tue May 30 2006, 06:26pm
Registered Member #14 Joined: Tue Sep 20 2005, 08:54pm
: Honolulu, HI
Posts: 35
 True. Since the "age of heroism" in architecture, it is perhaps more of a tested truth that architects cannot simply change the society by designing built-forms.

Economic reasons are critical in giving rise to the growth of slums. Perhaps it is not a purely architectural problem. Say, if these people had jobs earning Tk. 10,000 a month, they wouldn't be living in the slums. No one, in his right mind would want to live in a slum unless he is forced to do so.

I personally do not support the idea of "designing the slums" because I see it as a failure of our society to organize better devices to take care of the problem. When you design slums, you practically say that "okay, the slums are here to stay and these people are condemned to live like this. We are not going to try to improve your conditions but rather, we will make you permanent in this way of living". The "designed" slum buildings will tell the children of those places that "see, you live in the slum, you are the lowest in our society" - just as cartoonist Ronobi branded them as "tokai" class (with a definite undertone).

Physically, to me, the problems of the slum appear more in the absence of proper services (water, electricity, cooking fuel, sewage disposal) than architecture. It is the dirt, grime and unhygiene that makes a slum, a slum, not perhaps, the high density or so much, the architecture.

Our rural homes use many of the same ingredients - thatch, clay (floor) and similar building technology, still they don't appear as slums.

I can understand your concern for the "encroachment" of slums into our "designed" world - you look at it as an outsider. But slums should not be seen as a blight to be perpetuated and either "walled off" or "designed off" by giving institutional shape inside the designed world, but rather, by land management, services and self-help opportunities, the slums could be converted to simple but dignified living. Skill development, self-help and reforming the core of land-based politics and those parts of the economic system would be a better approach.

Uh! a long sermon, but these are my personal opinions about the topic.
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nirghum
Fri Jun 02 2006, 03:35am
Registered Member #26 Joined: Mon Nov 28 2005, 05:52pm
: bits N bites
Posts: 503
 rehabilitation of the slum people,
i think the transportation would be the most cruatial. it should be at a place which is very near to railway station. so that good number of people can come and go to city daily with a very minimum payment.

then the issue of supplying clean water would be cruatial.

high density living spaces is not a point to be mention, as from there the plan starts. and i think the mesures of community development with the help of community schooling, and free clinic to maintain and educate about better health, and familly planing is just very basic.
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NEO
Fri Jun 02 2006, 03:42pm
Admin Registered Member #4 Joined: Thu Aug 04 2005, 04:54am
: Dhaka
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mujtaba
Fri Jun 02 2006, 07:05pm
Registered Member #14 Joined: Tue Sep 20 2005, 08:54pm
: Honolulu, HI
Posts: 35
 Hmm..sounds like this is getting serious. To help you with design, let me give you a few examples to study, if you haven't studied these already (can "google" these):

Nader Khalili - Sand Bag Shelters (California Institute of Earth Art and Architecture)
Deborah Gans and Matthew Jelacic - Photovoltaic shelter (Competition winner from 300 entries)
Dante Bini - BiniShelter
Shigeru Ban - Cardboard tube/Beer crates/Paper Architecture
Daniel Libeskind - "Low-cost" modular shelter
(Mobile) Trailer Houses used for shelter after Katrina

These come under a category currently very popular with architecture students - called "ephemeral architecture". The tradition goes back to nomadic shelters - Wigwam, Tepee, Igloo, Yurt etc. I think, of particular interest to you for design would be Nader Khalili's Sandbag Architecture (2004). You can focus on "recycling" materials to build these structures to have a "helping the society clean up its mess" attitude (that seems to work). Since we don't have so much mess to clean up after all, maybe developing traditional shelters (bamboo structures in hilly terrains - Garo or Chakma, I am not sure) might be an area to research for. Look up Simon Velez, book by Marcelo Villegas or other sources of Bamboo architecture. Unfortunately I forgot the names of the architects famous for designing modern bamboo architecture in South America. Quite good though and you may want to "google" that too - interesting ideas. The trend is more towards Japanese paper and bamboo aesthetics as in Shigeru Ban.

Also look into Grameen's "low-cost shelter" that won several international awards, but I am sure those will not fit your bill - not the kind of aesthetics that young designers like you might look for.

Advice: I'd rather not combine low-cost with slum because those are two different problems.

Setbacks:
Temporary shelters (such as disaster shelters) usually tend to become permanent settlements with inferior quality of living, much like a slum. May want to research Rohinga refugee camps

Suggestions:

There are a lot of low lying areas in the periphery of Dhaka where local floating bamboo constructions would be most ideal. Of course, these need to be supplemented with rapid and cheap transportation (by waterways preferably where the cost and competition might be less). That's what I would try to solve if I were designing this. There goes my best bet for overcoming temporary slum problems. Besides, that's the only way to survive the flood, get enough water (of course you need to purify that before use), sanitation and even promote water based agriculture. Bhashantek, Rayer Bazar or some other areas may already have these typical slums, only they are not designed or supplemented with technology. Perhaps relative hygiene and cost effect studies might be useful here. I see a lot of resources and best of all, the problem of high land price, not present here, so I'd go for it.

Anyways, those are my suggestions. If you want to look up a design on stilts raised on water, I might post a couple of images of ocean resorts in some of these islands, sitting on the coral reef right on top of the water - Hotel Bora Bora in French Polynesia, or "over-water" bungalows in Tahiti -www.honey-moon.co.il/ categ.asp?cat_id=413 (too fancy though, but you'll get the idea of what I'm talking about). - Happy hunting
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nirghum
Thu Jun 08 2006, 09:08pm
Registered Member #26 Joined: Mon Nov 28 2005, 05:52pm
: bits N bites
Posts: 503
 at the beginig i got the message as rehabiliatation of slum.

now if i focus only to the topic as 'minimum cost' living them it reeally not what i thought it owuld be.

as minimum cost of living space may cover some other issues too. like a student came to dhaka, just after finishing his HSC to get in volved in some coaching program. then he really dont know how long he has to be there. may be after his result comes out he sees no reson to stay in dhaka. well if his result comes out in good shape till he dont want to make any permanant setup. so he will preffer a minimum costing and ready made living space. still it has got longibility of three to six month.same can happen when i came here to get some trainign from human resource development, whyle im actually geting ready to fly to dubai or saudiarabia as laboure. three to four month of minimum living.

but incase im here to buy a taxicab. i would look for a five to ten days shelter of minimumcost living space.

then surely a daily basis minimum conting living space will do good too. in segun bagicha area there are hotel where you can find some minimum costign hotels, chittagong hotel is one of them very old and famouse. and there is a amazing community of politicians. those who stay there, sharing the rooms some times even beds. as they though are fro different part of the country but come to see some minister, or MP and generally they are not sure how long it wiil take to get there job done. so actually they mannage to live there. they come and go often. posses the same mentality of being union porishad chairman, or root levell political leaders.

need to scrach head. if you focus only to loucost lving space, it gets more dimention added.
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