What is the “calling” of public housing?
Is it to provide basic “shelter”,
a roof over the head of a family? To squeeze
as many people into as small a foot print of site and building as possible to
make it “affordable”?
Can public housing be a wonderful place where people are proud to call it home? Can it provide a high quality of life?
In the 3 photos below which is
public housing and which is private housing?
All are located within half a kilometer from each other in Singapore.
 |
| Tower 1 - Public or Private Housing in Singapore? |
 |
Hong Kong Public Housing
(Photo Source: Wikipedia) |
 |
Pruit-Igoe - one of the most infamous American Public Housing developments ever.
(Photo Source: Affordable Housing Institute website)
|
Pruit-Igoe is perhaps the most studied public housing development in all of America. A documentary about the development titled, The Pruit-Igoe Myth and Urban History - 2011
did a well to explain how the flaw was not necessarily the design, but the institution set up to manage the facilities and the economics behind it.
So if you guessed that tower 1 is private housing and towers 2 and 3 are public housing, you were correct, but my guess is that if you never lived in Singapore you would have guessed the other way!
In looking at the following photos, these are all taken from recently built public housing by HDB (Housing and Development Board in Singapore). The photos are of 2 developments in the Queenstown area, one of the original HDB estates in Singapore which has mostly been demolished and is slowly being redeveloped.
 |
| Public seating areas at the ground level |
 |
| Partial Tower Detail constructed of prefabricated components. |
 |
| Internal light shaft with intermediate terraces |
 |
| Roof Garden to the carpark structure |
 |
| Garden Terraces at the face of the carpark structure |
These two development sit side by side and that give more reason to wonder why public housing can be of such a level and it is not one time thing. In fact these may be among the very best of all the public housing in Singapore, but it does show that a high standard can be achieved with a certain level of regularity.
The buildings, public spaces and landscaping is all well designed in the two developments and they are not of any particularly extravagant materials. Basic concrete, paint and some assorted textures merely composed in rational, geometric, systematic compositions that integrate the building with the landscape is really what these two developments have in common that creates the quality design in a public housing budget.
 |
| City View from the 47th level Roof Terrace |
In the end one can ask so what does it take to make real quality public housing? The answer can be seen in HDB from Singapore where over 80% of the population live in public housing and it is the highest rate of home ownership in the world. Quality design can be done in a public housing budget, maintenance and management has proven all over Singapore to be sustainable which was the main failure of Pruit-Igoe.
The most complete documentation of the HDB success is in a book which has been out of print for some time titled, Housing a Nation. In the beginning the public housing did look similar to most places in the world, long slab blocks of concrete, but in the 50 years of existence Singapore public housing has evolved like nowhere else. The institution of public housing is so comprehensive it integrates so much more that building design. Ownership, payment using retirement funds, qualification and allocation of units, maintenance, property management, service charges, etc, etc. Basically at the strategic level of nation building housing is one of the prime concerns that the government emphasizes and takes full responsibility.
As Singapore celebrated its 50th anniversary in 2015, it has basically spent the 50 years in building a "Unique Institution - HDB" which is the reason it can deliver the World's Best Public Housing!
No comments:
Post a Comment
Please keep comments brief. Thanks for visiting our site. Jiwa Studio.