The $5,000 Home for Developed Nations
Barnraising, image courtesy brockhistoricalsocieties.ca
The best thing about architects is not simply that they use cool software or design buildings or even that they can help create interesting spaces. The best thing about architects is that they solve problems. In school, as students, they are challenged to address social, cultural, racial, environmental, and not least, spatial, issues. Given the opportunity, they use their critical thinking skills to solve many different problems.
Based on this premise, architecture critic Guy Horton and I discussed the possibility of starting a round table or colloquium to brainstorm solving some pressing problems with architects and academics. Our efforts went nowhere. Then we read a column in the Economist suggesting that academics and corporations can do a lot when they combine their minds in “frugal innovation”. This includes things like the $300 house which, significantly, was a challenge put forth in a Harvard Business School blog, not aimed at architects.
Admirable as such projects are, they neglect poverty and homelessness in developed nations. This is a gross oversight. And it needs to be corrected. Pour populations in the U.S. haven’t received as much attention because, frankly, it’s less “sexy” to talk about urban poverty here than is in some exotic, far-flung place.
The U.S., Census Bureau statistics show that 19 million Americans live in extreme poverty (> $11,000/year income). Of these, children are disproportionately represented. Specifically, people under 18 comprise 25% of our population; according to the National Poverty Center, they are 35% of the impoverished population.
Image courtesy The WMRA Blog.
Poverty is over-represented in urban areas, not rural ones. So again, taking the U.S. as one example, about 70% of the homeless are located in urban zones, and of those, 30% are families. Additionally, homeless people with mental illness comprise anywhere from 1/3 to 1/2 of the homeless.
With such glaring statistics, how about turning our attention towards housing homeless families rather than criminalizing them? Maybe a group of critical-thinking architects along with economists, engineers, and social historians can’t solve this trenchant problem tomorrow. But architects do know a lot about creating space while taking into account social, cultural, economic, and environmental factors. And business people need to include them in any plan for “frugal innovation” which, apparently, can lead to positive economic and social outcomes.
The “Universal World House” (UWH) has had some success in developing nations like Angola and Zimbabwe. Made of cellulose (reprocessed cardboard and newspaper) and dubbed “SwissCell”, its pricetag is $5,000. But since in developed nations many of the poor live in dense urban neighborhoods or in industrialized zones, their needs are for permanence, security, and not yards where they can slaughter animals.
Other architectural interventions include the sun shelter for L.A.’s Skid Row Lamp Community, a project I worked on and participated in milling the pieces, painting, and installation. While this project was successful, I kept wondering if there was something more we could have done, from an architectural perspective. Something that’s not about showing off our design “chops” at the expense of the intended users, like it happened with some attempts to help rebuild New Orleans neighborhoods.
So the question I put to you here: Is it possible to design a home that is inexpensive, uses the newest technologies to control upkeep costs (as well as its carbon footprints) for that 30% urban homeless population? And I’m not thinking of FEMA-trailers and shipping containers.
We all know that the $300 house was an attention-grabbing gimmick. What’s more, it was for developing nations. So what is a fair figure for housing urban poor homeless families in developed nations? How about $5,000, a figure we arrived at independently of the UWH, which we came across while I was writing this blog.
Sherin Wing writes on the business and culture of architecture for ArchDaily.com where she is co-author of The Indicator. She is also co-author of the forthcoming book, The Real Architect’s Handbook: Things I Didn’t Learn in Architecture School. She received her PhD in the Humanities from UCLA.
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Interestingly there was a times op-ed piece on the $300 house just the other day. http://nyti.ms/k0vZKT
Even in ‘developing’ nations, the problems are not straightforward design only problems, but rather require a macro view of the problem that includes economic, political and societal vantage points to truly address the systemic societal issues.
The problems only get worse here in the US where there is an underlying bias that the poor and the homeless are that way due to personal choices and laziness - not willing to ‘lift themselves up by their bootstraps’ as the phrase goes…
As a young interior designer, I am searching for how to accomplish meaningful change in my projects and community. I’m quickly coming to realize that it can’t be done by design alone, but rather will, as you elude to, require an integrated approach including designers, developers, economists, politicians and city planners.
So the question on my mind is, How do we drive meaningful change going forward? Is producing design solutions alone actually accomplishing what we intend it to?
Comment by todd — June 2, 2011, @ 12:21 pm
I completely agree with the comment above.
This is not a problem that could be solved by design alone.
Comment by Dani Boyd — June 3, 2011, @ 12:24 pm
Inexpensive structures don’t seem to be taking into consideration the expense of the land to put them on. Sure we can make a structure for $5000, but the lot we’re going to put it on will cost $100,000. Unless we ship the homeless out into the hinterlands where empty land is inexpensive.
Comment by Jack Baker — June 3, 2011, @ 12:48 pm
Any interesting question for sure. To start with, how large is the SwissCell? Getting a cost per square foot might be a good starting point for comparison. Also, would the concept be to create individual dwellings or to embrace the urban situation and create a density of units, which may prove more cost-efficient.
There are several urban examples of housing for the transitioning homeless along Skid Row that have been constructed over the past decade that come close to this concept but in reality, the cost per square foot far exceeds the $5000 cap listed in this article. Abbey, Rainbow, and Carver housing complexes, to name a few, all exemplify the ability of architects to design dwellings for the homeless in an urban environment, with an eye on both design and cost; however, the cost is probably closer to $50,000 per dwelling unit when all expenses are factored in.
Comment by JinLA — June 3, 2011, @ 1:08 pm
This is part of the ‘unreality’ of architecture: the expectation of social responsibility. Because it has a foot in the arts, people think architecture shares similar goals. The majority of firms, however, do not enter competitions. They’re not particularly interested in design. And (to be brutally honest) they don’t really care about pushing the envelope on innovation.
Architecture is, in fact, a business. And as a business, most of it relies on repetition and simplicity for profit. The profession isn’t built to be any more socially aware than dentists or rodeo clowns. But there’s a public expectation that architects should have giant S’s across their chests.
Case in point: the last firm I worked for picked the Girl Scouts as their pet charity to devote more pro bono time. A string of logic perhaps best summarized by the letters WTF. Nothing against the Girl Scouts (a wonderful organization), but the premise of self sacrifice and social awareness was essentially boiled down to an HR task.
This is the majority of firms. Those that get published, win awards, and think outside the box are a very small proportion of the whole. Not intended as a gnashing of teeth, rending of garments or chewing of carpet … but more a gentle reality check for those expecting anything more.
Comment by shtrum — June 3, 2011, @ 2:00 pm
Maybe a re-read of the piece is in order just about now. The author states, specifically, that architects need to be PART OF A TEAM, not left out of it as they habitually are, pushed to the sidelines or never even thought of. She does not claim that architects alone can fix our glaring housing inequities. But they can offer their skills to teams of investment bankers, economists, developers, etc. Whatever happened to the idea, so often discussed today, that skills of all kinds—including design and architecture—are needed to solve seemingly intractable, socially damaging, and environmentally unsustainable problems?
Comment by sss — June 3, 2011, @ 5:58 pm
Very Interesting !
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Comment by DesignBuild Source — June 23, 2011, @ 9:30 pm
The $300 House doesn’t seem to be a gimmick. Yes, it has gotten a lot of attention, perhaps, but the idea is not as far-fetched as it sounds:
http://blogs.hbr.org/govindarajan/2011/06/when-the-new-york-times.html
Comment by SRoy — June 25, 2011, @ 2:20 am