FLEXIBLE HOUSING
1.INTRODUCTION Flexibility is defined as the ability to change and adapt a building to altered activities through its physical and administrative environment The degree of flexibility is determined in two ways. First the in-built opportunity for adaptability, defined as ‘capable of different social uses’ , and second the opportunity for flexibility, defined as ‘capable of different physical arrangements’. This principle of enabling social and physical change in housing might appear self evidently sensible. A number of buildings are renewed, and adapted, to new activities . In the former case, it is of financial consequence that buildings can be adapted to new requirements without extensive, technically complex and expensive measures. The question of flexibility has been highlighted because, for example, an increasing number of schools are rebuilt to meet changing needs. Another example is the shift from pre-school to group accommodation for geriatrics. Costs can be reduced if buildings are amenable to adaptation without recourse to extensive works. works . From a socio-economic perspective, there are advantages in more flexible buildings, where building life span can be extended significantly. The tendency to design buildings that only correspond to a specific type of household at a specific point in time reflects a way of thinking thinkin g that is predicated on short term economics. Flexibility in buildings is controlled by various decisions. In every investment, an active or passive decision is made to control flexibility. The conditions that enable decision-support and the individuals responsible for those decisions are critical aspects. This paper deals with aspects that help build greater understanding of the processes that control changes in buildings towards future flexible buildings. We discuss factors influencing flexibility in buildings. These are both tangible and intangible in nature, but we learn that a balance has to be achieved between them to make the building a successful su ccessful venture.
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Developments in the building sector show a number of trends all of which point to the growing importance of flexibility in buildings and the installations concerned. Such as:
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The long life cycle of buildings compared to the short life cycle of its functions The vacancy of buildings because they don’t longer meet the present requirements. The same problem occurs with churches, old schools and ware houses. Another trend is the rapid change of user demands compared to the slow changing possibilities of buildings
Flexibility in regard to change in markets, whether in product, demand or distribution, allows an organization to make the adjustments necessary to remain relevant and efficient. Flexibility requires a commitment to creating an organizational structure that permits a quick response to change. It also demands a commitment to quick decision-making and the reallocation of resources. Not every organization is able to do this. Adaptable, recyclable and sustainable buildings will be major criteria in assessing future buildings. Adaptable housing units are designed in such a way as they are, or can be easily modified in the future to become, accessible to both occupants and visitors with disabilities or progressive disabilities. Among the factors that play a role here are saving of base materials, minimizing waste production, ease of dismantling and adaptability. Clearly, flexible buildings that are really adaptable to changing conditions respond to this trend. Inflexibility means that once the users’ needs change, as inevitably they do, the occupants have no choice but to move. This keeps the housing market in a state of permanent demand. If flexibility were built in, occupants would be able to adapt their houses and so stay longer in them; this would depress the housing market and limit the continuing sales on which developers depend
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2. FLEXIBILITY KEY PERFORMANCE INDICATORS
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Partitionability is judged by the parameters for Distribution (supply and removal), Conversion (central unit or supply system), Transfer (of installation functions), Measurement (consumption) and Control (use).
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Adaptability is judged by the Disconnectibility of the various installation components (plug-in connections), the Accessibility of co mponents (distribution networks, zoning) and the Adjustability of measurement and control facilities.
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Extendibility is judged by the Capacity and Dimensions of facilities for distribution, conversion (central unit), measurement and control, and the Location and structure of distribution networks.
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Multifunctionality is judged by the number of Integrated functions in distribution facilities and in facilities for supply, use, measurement and control, and the extent to which the various components are universal (projectindependent). 3
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3.Identifying flexibility factors Material standards Materials with a life suitable for both existing and future activities create flexibility in buildings. Choice of material affects the life of the whole building and adapting the material to suit both current and future activities gives added value
3.1. Production Today prefabrication plays an important role in construction industry. Prefabrication means that all or parts of a building are made in factories and brought to the building site ready to be assembled (Ballard and Arbulu, 2004). Compared with the earlier construction methods, these modern building techniques have become more flexible regarding the techniques of manufacturing.
3.2. Planning for future changes and service life A plan for the lifetime of the building drawn up during initial design should provide increased flexibility (Moravek, 1996). Future planning determines the possible future functions to which a building can be adapted. Current buildings are regulated by a number of laws and guidelines, but over the course of time these will change or be amended. A building often has a long service life. Over time the laws that applied when it was built may have changed. It may then be that future rebuilding will experience problems with new l aws and guidelines.
3.3. Installations Modern installations generally take up more space than was required a few decades ago. With regard to flexibility and installations the problem arises because of difficulty in changing installations (Apleberger et al., 2005).
3.4. Financial aspects Increased flexibility creates increased value during rebuilding, but also increased initial cost (Greden, 2005). However, a study shows that flexible solutions increase the initial production cost by an average of less than 2 per cent, which can be saved directly during the first r enovation. The financial factor has the second strongest affect on flexibility. 4
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3.5. Awareness aspects The term “awareness” is taken to mean that users, property-owners and builders are aware that the building is subject to change. In the event that any one of them is unaware of the opportunity of adapting and changing the building is static. The aim of flexible thinking assumes that the interested parties take account of the planned or implemented adaptation potential of the building. This factor is rated as having the strongest affect on flexibility.
The aspects of awareness, finance, and installations affect flexibility the most, while future planning, production and material standards have lesser affect on the flexibility. But the fact is that all aspects are significantly affecting flexibility. Ref:FACTORS INFLUENCING FLEXIBILITY IN Figure 1 shows a separation between the six factors, BUILDINGS three “soft” ones (awareness aspects, finance and future planning) and three “hard” ones (material standards, production and installations). The hard aspects are named “hard” because they are all directly. connected to the building. The soft aspects are called “soft” because they are not directly connected to the building.
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4. SOFT & HARD TECHNOLOGY ‘Soft’ refers to tactics which allow a certain indeterminacy, whereas ‘hard’ refers to elements that more specifically determine the way that the design may be used. In terms of use it may appear a contradiction that flexibility can be achieved through being either very indeterminate in plan form or else very determinate, but historically both approaches have developed in parallel throughout the twentieth century.
4.1. SOFT USE Soft use generally demands more space, even some redundancy, and is based on a relaxed approach to both planning and technology, whereas hard use is generally employed where space is at a premium and a room has to be multifunctional. If one approach to soft use depends on the designer providing a physically fixed, but socially flexible, layout, a more common solution is to provide raw space that can then be divided according to the needs of the occupants. Soft technology is the stuff that enables flexible housing to unfold in a manner not completely controlled by the foreground of construction techniques. The notion of soft space lends itself in particular to a participative approach to design, allowing a degree of tenant control at both design stages and ov er the life of the building. manner.
4.2. Hard use The hard use is use that is largely determined by the architect. To this extent hard use is consistent with the typical desire of the architect to keep control, and it is therefore maybe not surprising that hard use is associated with some of the twentieth century’s iconic architects. Hard technology By hard technologies we mean those technologies that are developed specifically to achieve flexibility, and which are the determining feature of the scheme.
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5. IDENTIFYING DECISION-MAKERS FOR FLEXIBILITY.
Property owners
Ref:FACTORS INFLUENCING FLEXIBILITY IN BUILDINGS
Property owners are the ones who have the most to gain from a flexible building, but only where they do not intend to dispose of the property before a change takes place. In that case, they have a marketing advantage over those with inflexible buildings. The behaviour of property owners affects decisions regarding the degree of flexibility. In most cases, property owners make the assessment as to whether or not the building will be changed. Assessment of building changes is done on the basis of conditions such as supply, demand, and opportunities for change, financial attitude and opportunity for increased efficiency.
Architects Architects have a great opportunity to affect flexibility in a building. An architect is to perform the design of buildings, and will then visually illustrate how a building will be used. This means that in cases where the architect feels that the building will probably change use in the future to something other than that initially envisaged, he or she are to ensure that the function of a building is also suitable for future activities through their designs . Architects can therefore act as decision-makers to affect flexibility in buildings. 7
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Contractors There may be decision-makers by the contractors whom via various decisions can affect the level of flexibility in the buildings they produce. These parties could for example be the CEO who has the roles of a company-wide strategic decision maker. The overhead decisions can affect further decisions on the adaptability of the buildings. It is not unusual that decision-makers in the contractor companies participate in the development of industry wide standards that affect the production of buildings. The result shows that building company has little influence over flexibility in a building in comparisons with the other factors.
Authorities Authorities also affect flexibility. National and municipal decision-makers affect flexibility through overall legal and strategic decisions . In new production and major rebuilding, the design of the building is always examined in various ways to ensure safety and accessibility, and the public has the opportunity to affect the decision. In these decisions, flexibility in buildings is affected. As an example, it is a legal duty to provide handicapped access in all newly constructed and renovated buildings, this rather new aspect was hard to foresee only 15 years ago. This means that in major reconstruction there is a requirement for increased accessibility. This decision can make a building that previously was capable of being changed no longer f lexible but static . Rebuilding becomes more expensive than previously because of a legal impact or regulations enforced by authorities.
Project manager The decisions of individual project managers can also affect flexibility in buildings, in that their choices and attitudes produce different outcomes in terms of the opportunity for change in the building. The individual project managers make decisions, or affect them, and in this way they also affect flexibility.
Users Users can affect flexibility in buildings when their activities change and develop, which means that buildings also have to develop and change accordingly. Users affecting property owners via decisions on individual activities can thus cause property owners to make decisions concerning flexibility. 8
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ADAPTED BUILDING PRODUCTS ACCORDING TO THE CLIENT’S
Clients Clients can be property owners, building companies, or other organisations that have a financial or other involvement in producing a building. Through their financial Flexibility Key Performance involvement with a building, their ability to affect the decisions to ensure future efficiency of the buildings is increased. Clients are often the ones who initiate the production of buildings and thus have the opportunity to affect flexibility in the buildings they produce.
A flexible building would be simpler for the purchaser to sell on than a building adapted for a single activity. Also, any future rebuilding should be simple for the purchaser through awareness planning. Relations between customer and purchaser are different, based on short or long-term relations, where all involved have various roles.
Ref:FACTORS INFLUENCING FLEXIBILITY IN BUILDINGS
Relations and roles mean that the opportunities for the customer or purchaser to affect the decision regarding flexibility vary from one project to another. Flexible buildings are created through awareness on the part of everyone involved. A 9
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problem from an awareness angle is therefore the customer’s short-term understanding of the positive aspects of a flexible building. Long-term relations more readily reflect the awareness aspects where the relations between purchaser and executor are based on understanding and more well defined roles. Awareness aspects have different effects depending on the design of the project and who is involved, but overall it is flexibility in buildings that seems to have the most influence, which shows in the statistics.
The hard aspects are all directly connected to the building and therefore easy to see as a part of the flexibility but the soft aspects are often disregarded in the context of flexibility. The “soft aspects” are aspects that are not directly connected to the building and if not included the maximum flexibility can only reach 44 per cent.
Ref:FACTORS INFLUENCING FLEXIBILITY IN BUILDINGS
There is a lack of knowledge and a lack of awareness in the area of flexibility. They need to be aware of, who the decision-makers are, what the nature of the decisions are, and which governing factors that affect the flexibility are.
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6. CASE STUDY URBA PROJECT: CONCEPTS
DEVELOPING
NEW
URBAN
HOUSING
IN THE HELSINKI METROPOLITAN AREA The housing market in the Helsinki area is narrow and one-sided in more ways than one. The market is lacking in flexibility, which has a negative effect on the competitiveness of the region. There is a constant shortage of reasonably priced dwellings for a number of target groups. The ideal of home-ownership predominates, and the supply of rental dwellings is insufficient. In times of fluctuating economic conditions, the acquisition of a dwelling for a short period of time, if only for a couple of years, is a risky proposition. For example, an expert moving temporarily to the area with his/her family from abroad is in trouble. The housing market operates almost exclusively in the Finnish language. There is a marked shortage of dwellings for rent and of services for moving and adapting to new conditions. Urban living and the production of new dwellings are both in need of greater flexibility, because the population in the capital region is more heterogeneous than average. Differences in income and social status are greater than elsewhere. The percentage of foreign nationals in the population is considerably higher than elsewhere. The structure of professions is also different than in Finland on average. There are proportionally more people than average in supervisory or leading positions, specialists , IT professionals and professionals in the natural sciences and in artistic professions , as well as office and customer service. Housing production in Finland remains predominantly in the hands of Finnish developers, and over the decades practices have become entrenched. One factor that explains the nature of housing policy and urban planning in Finland is that it was first after World War II that urbanisation got under way here and prosperity increased, and residential suburban areas were developed by public-private partnerships. Another important factor was Finnish welfare policy which put an emphasis on equitable housing, yet at the same time led to a lack of diversity in industrial housing production. 11
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This lack of diversity in current housing production is one of the main problems in the housing market today. The majority of new housing consists of mass produced multi-storey residential buildings, and from the consumer's viewpoint alternatives are hard to find in the market . In practice, the choice of dwelling is dictated by location and price, which in turn largely depends on the location. In terms of their floor plan, fittings and materials, new dwellings are very uniform. Even in expensive and trendy properties that are carefully branded in view of a particular customer group, the dwellings themselves are ordinary. In mass customized housing areas, the buyer's possibilities to have a say in the dwelling are generally limited to the choice of finishing materials, cabinet doors and domestic appliances that alternatives for which have all been decided beforehand. In the rental market, the occupant's options are even slimmer, even though some experiments in participatory planning have been carried out. The design of residential buildings is typically conservative. There is a general belief that occupants want things that are safe and familiar. There is fear that unusual solutions might scare away the customers and obstruct the resale market later on. It is safer for the occupant to be flexible than for an expensive dwelling. (Rask & Timonen & Väliniemi 2008.) The Finnish housing sector, which in this context covers urban planning, housing policy, housing production and housing market, has many actors. The problem is that no single actor is responsible for the overall workings of the system, nor have any general targets been set for it anywhere. Cooperation between different actors is infrequent and incidental. The operating conditions of the sector are determined by the State through legislation and norms. Municipalities are responsible for land use policy, land use planning and building control. Banks and investors provide funding, developers and building companies construct, market and sell their products. The system is a complex network of codes and nodes of intersecting interests and actors. The key factors are economic trends, interest rates and the prevalent interests in housing policy. This situation may be changing, however. The global economy also affects the Finnish housing market. The economic downturn that began in 2008 was reflected quite rapidly in housing production in the Helsinki Metropolitan Area.
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There are currently thousands of expensive, privately funded dwellings (free from price regulation) unsold in the area. Non-subsidised housing production has come to an almost complete standstill. The construction sector is facing a deep recession and mass unemployment. The Finnish housing industry has already turned to the State and the municipal sector, asking for measures to alleviate the situation. Cities in the Helsinki Metropolitan Area are in fact increasing the production of subsidised rental dwellings. It will be interesting to see whether the housing industry will change its operating approach by, for example, increasing R&D or trying out new housing concepts. In the URBA-project, sustainability is understood in its broad meaning referring to environmental, social and economical dimensions.
Environmental sustainability includes dense
urban
structure
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infrastructure based on developed, • • • • •
high standard public transport durable housing stock sustainable building materials and building performance energy-efficient buildings with low carbon release sustainable and ageless design.
Social sustainability means • • • • •
possibilities to citizen participation in planning and design processes user-initiated flexibility of apartments possibility of inhabitants' self-determination high quality of life in a safe, healthy and aesthetic urban environment freedom of choice and versatility in the housing market.
Economical dimension includes •
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housing stock and urban structure which enable sustainable economic growth in the Helsinki Metropolitan area. new actors in the fields of sustainable construction, design and assessment. 13
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These dimensions are emphasized in varying degrees in each of the new ‘urban housing concepts’ (introduced below in section 4.2.), which serve as a platform for examining and testing out possible directions for developing more sustainable housing in the Helsinki Metropolitan Area. There is a need for assessment methods that take into account various dimensions of sustainability and concrete accepted criteria so that it becomes possible for decision makers to evaluate proposals. The URBA research group selected five concepts for further development. • Settle-down flat (Modest or moderately priced and equipped, easy- to- get rental apartments for transitory life situations. Target groups: newcomers, immigrants, students, low-wage employees, temporary workers, divorcees etc.) •
James – serviced apartments (Centrally situated, mostly rental
apartments combined with services, such as cleaning, laundry, shopping, walk the dog, etc. to ease everyday life. Target groups: modern city people, 'yuppies', singles, ITC workers, people who travel a lot, etc.) • Group building and/or self-help housing (Building a house or a group of houses by a voluntary, non-profit group of future occupants, assisted by professionals. The aim is a building that serves individual and/or group needs better than an ordinary building. Target group: active inhabitants who want to participate more than average in decisions affecting their living environment, and are committed to participate in a demanding planning/building process.) • Town house (An old concept that is common in many countries except for Finland. Mostly private houses with a front door facing the street and a small (backyard) garden. Target groups: families and those who want a private garden, but prefer urban living.) • Flexible housing – user-initiated flexibility (The concept focuses on the flexible organisation of space properly scaled for the site. The dwelling can accommodate changes over time concerning styles of habitation and use of space. This represents a change from function-based design thinking towards organisation-based thinking.) 14
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7. FLEX HOUSING FlexHousing is a practical approach to designing and building housing that allows residents to convert space to meet their changing needs. Based on the principles of adaptability, accessibility, affordability and healthy housing, FlexHousing brings together the best of everything we know about building houses. • • •
Adaptability Accessibility Affordability
Adaptability means the space is designed to evolve easily as the needs of the occupants change, and with minimal expense. For example, the Regina demonstration house is designed to provide an extra bedroom if a caregiver is required.
Accessibility means the home is barrier-free. Everyone benefits from an accessible home, not just older people or people with special mobility needs . For example, wider hallways in the Regina Healthy House make it easy to move furniture or to use a wheelchair to get from room to room.
Affordability means that the house is relatively inexpensive to change. Although some features may be slightly more expensive to install during construction, their initial expense is recovered in lower renovation costs over the long-term. Wider doorways and lower, more accessible light switches cost very little to incorporate at the time of construction but would be much more costly to install later. The key to flexible housing design is considering your long-term requirements before you build or renovate, and design with those needs in mind. Some features are installed at the time of construction; others are built into the design and can be inexpensively added later. The best FLEX HOUSING design also includes the principles of Healthy Housing™.
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8. CONCLUSION Flexible buildings are created through awareness on the part of everyone involved and it is therefore important to involve all actors to achieve a good result regarding the level of flexibility. In the urge to achieve flexibility the architects have often dwelt in the notion of gaining control over the future, unforeseen occupation of the building, and thus hampered the present function. The innovation in materials and structure has already started and will play an important role in rendering flexibility. By improving the quality of the decision-making process the most appropriate level of adaptability will be provided but an assessment has to be against what customers want and how much the owner of the property can accommodate changes of the building, into another more efficient one.
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9. REFERENCES •
Design for Change Flexibility Key Performance Indicators
1st I3CON Conference Industrialised, Integrated, Intelligent Construction
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URBA PROJECT: DEVELOPING NEW URBAN HOUSING CONCEPTS IN THE HELSINKI
METROPOLITAN AREA
S. Puustinen¹, J.Kangasoja² •
COHESION AND FLEXIBILITY IN URBAN DESIGN PROCESS IN AMSTERDAM – ANALYSIS BY THE FRAME OF TIME AND SCALE M. Ryu
Delft University of Technology, P.O.Box 5043, 2600GA Delft, The Netherlands, Email:
[email protected]
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FACTORS INFLUENCING FLEXIBILITY IN BUILDINGS
Niklas Israelsson and Bengt Hansson Lund University, Malmo¨ , Sweden
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Housing markets and economic growth: lessons from the US refinancing boom
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