Study
While we know almost everything essential about single-family houses and apartments, even recognizing an atrium house or a townhouse might be difficult. Although these low-rise, high-density estates are widespread in Europe, especially in the Benelux countries and Scandinavia, unfortunately, very few of these cluster-like houses are being built here in Hungary.
Our digital curriculum aims to promote low-rise, high-density housing solutions through short architectural history and morphological analysis and a collection of 99 examples – historical, twentieth-century, and contemporary dwellings.
Introduction
Creating a collection like this practically means initiating a dialogue with relics of bygone times, either of distant or recent past. We treasure their memories – and here we mean those of human-made environments above all – in our minds when travelling, walking the streets every day, watching TV, or even as a random, disorderly mass of visual effects when surfing the Internet. The dialogue is thus the process of making ourselves aware of these experiences, as well as cataloguing them. A selection of this kind is essential for both architects and students of architecture. This is the role that the present collection is meant to play in this special topic.
Our collection is meant to present and systematize low-rise, high-density residential developments. Thus, we analyse forms of housing in which constituents – typically dwelling units and their complementary functions – are orchestrated into a certain system to create a harmonious unity, an integral composition also interpretable in itself. What is actually meant by low-rise, high-density development? There are numerous interpretations, primarily defining the concept in terms of the quantity of coordinated components contained. Some approaches prioritize housing density, while others rate certain forms of housing according to the method of development and thus relate them in the relevant categories. Kálmán Timon uses the expression “modern developments with gardens” in his book. Contemporary and with a garden. To define the network of classification we have used just now, it seems necessary to clarify these two concepts.
Contemporariness – Presence
We may approach the concept of contemporariness by interpreting its counterpart or opposite, which is out-of-date, not in tune with the Zeitgeist, discordant with the requirements of the period, anachronistic. Accordingly, contemporary (modern) is in line with Zeitgeist and meets the prevailing requirements of its time. It is important to note here that, in the context of this selection, contemporariness is by no means the equivalent of novelty (modernness) since it is not driven by the ambition “to differ by all means” or by the aspiration to innovate, but by presence, the responses ripened in several stages to meet the challenges of “here and now”. In the reality of the present, it is the ambition to create attachment and bonding – both in time and space – which is the most important motivation: the way a building meets the challenges of current conditions of time and space (experienced as a continuum) and gives architectural responses to them driven by practicality and sensitivity to problems. A need for presence is, of course, a constant factor throughout the history of architecture. However, as we shall see apropos of certain projects referred to here, it is a most changeable value rooted in time and space. Thus, we rely upon it as one of the cornerstones of our classification.
Garden
The garden has been and is present in architecture in numerous formats and ways. Its significance is far from being a novelty to deal with. The presence of fences is a basic manifestation of each garden variety. In this respect, the garden essentially differs from the landscape, which lacks defined boundaries. The very act of raising a fence (enclosing) transforms the garden into an architectural category (enclosure) which is part of every project we have included here as a spiritual and physical basic need. However, its role and niche within the composition, its rank in the hierarchy significantly vary depending on the development’s tracery and density.
Densification and Tracery
Density is a key aspect of classification. The developments presented here primarily feature what we regard as independent of location, cultural and social environment: the tracery often fed by extreme densification, the wide variety and versatility of structures, the hierarchy of the composition of the development as such. When interpreting densification as an abstract concept related to architecture, we may think of several associations. One could think of a system growing in an additive way that actually consumes the “empty” space (void) surrounding it while expanding and thus saturating and condensing it. We may as well associate it with the process whereby built spaces enclose space from the endless domain of nature for our purposes when buildings grow and expand. It can also be interpreted as a two-dimensional flat composition made up of layered and coordinated lines and patches that an architect immediately grasps with his spatial thinking as a system, the disposition of spaces and volumes, a three-dimensional structure. In this selection, we make distinctions between archetypes according to tracery, the means of densification that convey and maintain architectural continuity by their permanent character.
The Structuring of our Collection
Gyűjteményünk olyan alacsony, sűrű beépítési formák rendszerezése, ahol a lakófunkció kerttel egészül ki. Létrehozását azért tartjuk fontosnak, mert meglévő építészeti kompozíciók megfigyelésével, értelmezésével, katalogizálásával, olyan bázist kívánunk létrehozni, amelyhez nem elsősorban formai, vagy esztétikai alapon viszonyulunk, sokkal inkább a kompozíciók állandó jellemzőit rögzítve, a változások tanulságait megfigyelve. A gyűjtemény az állandóságra és a változásokra koncentrálva két részre oszlik. Az első részben a 20. század előtt született példákon keresztül olyan állandónak tekinthető rétegeket mutatunk meg, melyek a korszerűség változásai során beépülnek a második részben bemutatott 20. századi példákba, vagy éppen napjaink épületeibe.
The Historical Forms of Low-Rise, High-Density Developments
The Significance of Historical Examples
As Tamás Tomay argues, “each building is a continuation”. This, in turn, means that the history of architecture is an evolution of follow-up projects and densifications, not only in the physical but also in the conceptual sense. This statement deserves special attention apropos of our selection since it focuses on the importance of continuity and the significance of hidden correlations. We aim to present characteristic permanent forms of behaviour, unique variations of the (arche)types evolving throughout centuries and continuously shaped by the need to respond to challenges of contemporariness and presence. Each constituent forms part of a process with antecedents, and most probably, they do not represent the end of a journey. Appropriate and moderate changes are only viable in the knowledge of the foregoing; thus, we approach historical examples as the repositories of these antecedents. The continuity of architecture is not unlike unique ontogenesis, a kind of evolution that features both construction as an activity and the thought creating buildings. Hence, the significance of historical prototypes lies in the relationship between permanence and uniqueness: a logic we hereby clarify.
The Structuring of the Collection of Historical Examples
The historical projects we included here reflect approaches from the aspect of composition. They accentuate basic features of composition along with geometric correlations that influence it. As functional purity was typically a later development in the wide temporal spectrum of the evolution of historical examples and only appeared with modernisation, we did not exclusively focus on residential function. The developments cited here include towns existing and evolving even today, closed and yet functionally complex residential systems, hermitages, settlements already destroyed and even ensembles from all over the world. Their geographical and regional diversity was intentional. We tried our best to include examples that characterise each type, both from Europe and beyond, buildings and developments without architects (indigenous or vernacular architecture), as well as works of architectural art to prove the general-universal spatial and temporal relevance of these behavioural forms and principles of composition.
Presence in the Past
The examples in our historical collection are typically developments without architects. In the case of vernacular architecture, the community intending to build, the designer and the builder tend to be the same, or their relationship is basically different from that typical of the 20th century. Their close connections are the guarantee of in-depth knowledge of needs and the adequacy of responses. As a result, practical considerations and architectural responses to functional challenges are reflected in these building complexes in a much more self-evident, legible way. Enclosure-type developments in Africa, the kraals and ksars, were fostered by formations of rites performed around a fire and evolved into estates and villages that offer shelter and exist even today. Although the traceries of developments, the system of lines and patches were created by the users’ trivial considerations, without any superior principle of composition, they reflect the same kind of co-ordination and orderliness as an architectural work. Later examples from the classical period of architectural art are also excitingly educational since they exemplify an approach prioritizing the clarity of organisation and structuring above all. The hermitage in Majk, the impassionate sequences of residential buildings in the harbour of Copenhagen, as well as England’s much-favoured circuses that radiate perfection, are all results of the same gesture: seeking the way out of the organically grown multitude of buildings of medieval towns and cities that sunk into fanciful and vague non-transparency.
The Garden in the Past
Venues for life and work used to be less separate throughout the centuries than they are today. Activities associated with the ground, garden, and courtyard filled most people’s days, and thus gardens were integral parts of their residential environment. Now the question is more about the method of use and the garden’s place and size. In certain regions, the protective function of being fenced in (or enclosed) used to be more important centuries ago than today, and residential buildings with their stone-walled gardens combined to make up minor fortifications over time. For some communities, the garden had a different role and thus evolved as the venue for recreation, socializing, and a sense of belonging. Attachment to nature or semi-nature (a smaller personalised part of it) was more versatile and much more powerful than today.
Typology – traceries
Typologies convey the genome of continuity by arbitrarily enlarging individual layers, stripping the primary meaning of the spectacle from the genuine contents. The system of viewpoints applied tends to be a subjective one, and it only draws attention to the permanence of certain principles of composition. In line with our observations, distinguishing features may be described within a matrix. One of the constituents of this matrix is the response of the development to its environment, which can be either the “fill” model or the “growing” kind. The other component is the internal system or organisation of the development, which may be a pattern, lane or cohesion.
Fill
A complete system confined within a frame. The geometry defining it may be an endowment, but the development itself may also create for itself the form closing in on itself. The attitude to the frame is varied and versatile. The development by the Fuggers in Augsburg continues and tidies incomplete gestures in the human-made environment. Topological features feed Bispukin’s fortified marshy island. Sardinia, another island, features nuraghi, offering shelter by creating wall-like enclosures.
Growth
The most significant distinguishing feature of this type is open-ended. The adjective “growing” does not necessarily mean any change to the structure by time. More typically, it refers to the endlessly reproducible inner logic of the coordination of its constituents. Neither exact boundaries could be relied upon as topographical features of the site, nor environmental factors force the development to turn away or close itself. A fine example of additive, growing structures is Çatal Hüyük, where only the number of inhabitants limited the dimensions of the settlement.
Pattern
The most significant, vital feature of a pattern is that it is a complex multi-layer system. Besides tracery, its intense spatiality also defines its character. As opposed to the linear nature of the “lane” type, its infilling nature is accentuated. Its role is to fill in larger surfaces with smaller components featuring similar function and scale according to the logic of a certain system. It creates the development by approaching it from the aspect of built components – either additively, following the logic of African kasbahs, or negatively, by seizure or cutting-out, like in the town of Olynthos. The composition often evolves by building in many layers, dividing the program into several essential components and grouping them in minor units like fractals, much like Dogon villages do.
Lane
Here the inner, interim or intermediate space is essential. It is more important than the relationship with the place; it is a unique, often arbitrary system, which sometimes creates a new quality, distinguishing itself from its environment. More often than not, the new hierarchical situations created by these “transitory” spaces prove to be the most liveable places. Numerous factors may influence the geometry, direction and internal system of tracery that these spaces feature – such as orientation, local climatic features, the preservation of the intimacy of neighbouring buildings, as well as views. The “directional houses” convey powerful militant architectural character, which is necessary for their lives and functioning. A multitude of houses built in areas with emphatic directions tends to behave in strikingly similar ways.
Cohesion
This is the type that is most in tune with the locational factors or the human-made situation. It is a synonym for adjustment. Adhesion is the means of being nourished from the valuable endowments presupposing a solid and robust “enclosure-like” frame as a starting point. Owing to the versatility of this frame, it is applicable in several situations. By seizing upon existing, traceable, characteristic features, these developments may climb steep hillsides by adhering to the contour lines and terraces along with them, to the counterforts or winding piers of a waterfront, to the paths and ways, as well as to the loose ends of fragmentary or frayed urban fabrics.
Organising the components of this matrix in a grid, we could classify six groups for the examples included in our selection. Fill – Pattern, Fill – Lane, Fill – Cohesion, Growth – Pattern, Growth – Lane, Growth – Cohesion
20th Century and Contemporary Low-Rise, High-Density Developments
The first half of our selection was devoted to historical examples, which we analysed as compositions to observe general principles and behavioural forms that we also classified as various typologies. In the latter half of our collection, we present developments as variations on permanent features. These two aspects of analysis are relevant and applied in each description, illustrating how each architectural work contains elements of permanence and change simultaneously and that new structures are also vehicles of living meaning.
After surveying the possible typological correlations, observable changes (as opposed to what is “general”) are more emphasised when analysing 20th century and contemporary examples. The history of architecture is fostered by the multitudes of such minor deformations in comparison with permanent features. We seek explanations for these deformations in their correlations with location, period, and cultural context instead of general principles of composition. As a result, the concepts we have introduced before (such as contemporariness, presence and garden) reoccur. Lessons of the analyses of these concepts are just as important as the clarity of typology and composition, which we referred to in detail previously. When perpetuating general behavioural forms, observed and consciously applied, these areas foster innovative designers’ thinking and guarantee that designs and works do not fall behind the times and become obsolete. Presence and the garden thus attain key roles apropos the projects analysed here, and the continuous revision of these two categories are especially important during design work.
Fascinating example of the hidden continuity and renaissance of patterns and types is the stepped structure featured in 10th-century India, 20th-century and contemporary Japanese architecture, much in the same way as a genuinely progressive Danish apartment building system. The “miraculous well” (Chand Bori) of Abhaneri, the terraced structure of the Japanese Metabolist master Kiyonori Kikukate near the hills of Mishima, the “Pasadena Heights”, Tadao Ando’s botanical garden on the island of Awaji, and the mound house of BIG built in Copenhagen in 2007 – all derive from the same centuries-old tracery, which is continued by responding to issues of presence.
Contemporarinesses and Presence
One of the most prominent architectural challenges of the last century was the general shortage of housing and, in its wake, the lack of quality housing that persists today. From the industrial revolution on, overpopulation due to masses of people flocking to towns and cities, increasingly intolerable crowding, ravaging epidemics, and crime stripped town-dwellers of their human dignity. The lack of housing grew intolerable in the post-war era. To respond to this issue, housing development projects were targeted to construct numerous cost-efficient apartments. Mansions, as well as single-family houses, proved uneconomical because of construction and maintenance costs and the provision of infrastructure. Hence, there was no comprehensive solution to the most burning issue of the 20th century. Multi-apartment buildings, though comfortingly economical, did not allow for meaningful contact with gardens and nature. The population boom necessitated quests for solving the issues of the housing shortage. Simultaneously with the increasing demand for housing, the potentials of high-density developments with gardens came into focus as a viable form of large-scale housing. In 1902, Sir Ebenezer Howard, in his book entitled Garden Cities of To-morrow, argued that this kind of development might constitute an integrated foundation for more efficient urban life instead of rural retreat. This form of development provides architects with a non-stop revival for architects in the 20th century and today. As examples of our collection prove, the past century or so saw many successful attempts to spread this concept broadly. Our collection is not meant by any means to survey the entirety of 20th-century architectural history. We have only focussed on examples relevant and important for us since they contain special lessons regarding presence and garden uses. In this introduction, we only have three prominent factors that repeatedly fuel this widespread housing form while also giving it new directions.
Breaking away from former stylistic canons, modern architects prioritized function and envisioned highly viable apartments responding to the changing lifestyle. This approach resulted in the improvement of housing standards and the quality of life in general. Living spaces bathed in light brought about issues of the individual’s autonomy. Besides the former practical considerations, spatial organisation tailor-made to suit a variety of lifestyles became important. Although the strengths of Modernism permeate architecture even today, the past seventy years saw numerous attempts to ameliorate its imperfections, thus differentiating these codified residential environments.
For us, one of the most exciting trends is Structuralism, born in the Netherlands, one of the centres of high-density modern developments featuring gardens. Representatives of this movement realised that the modern city has broken up into anatomically specialised, lifeless cells. As a result, historical values such as the plazas, streets, enclosures, courtyards and gardens have been lost. This is why a new goal set was to restore life’s entirety and the organic nature of developments. Exemplary patterns were borrowed from indigenous peoples since their settlements revealed a confluence of simple geometric order and humanism. As they argue, living streets interspersed with bazaars and systematic order must be simultaneously present in architecture. As an influence of Dutch Structuralists, functionally complex organisation evoking that of the kasbahs, combined with “functional mix” and “labyrinthine order” in today’s interpretation, gave new life to the frozen white sculptures of Modernism.
Starting millennia ago, tendencies in the spirit of permanence and change are still underway. Although the proximity in time makes it challenging to assess purely architectural values, dedication to contemporariness and the quest for presence permeates even the most recent examples of our selection. Pandemic at the turn of the millennia is the atomisation of societies, the total collapse of communities, and individuals’ isolation. Although restoring collective thinking and responsibility is not a task for architecture exclusively, we believe that (besides economic considerations) participatory ways of thinking and participative design work may be essential duties today to reform the basis for building residential and other micro-communities.
Garden
Changes in the role of the garden are ever-important, intriguing aspects. Initially, it was obviously a vegetable garden that belonged to the house. However, this role was gradually taken over by practical, functional and symbolic contents resulting from density, urban lifestyles or the 20th-century manner of living. Allowing light into interiors and the cooling effects of evaporating water surfaces in shady internal courtyards (against a backdrop of certain climatic conditions) were functional considerations present at the time of our historical examples. These days, they are back in focus again. In the Netherlands, where residential areas are reclaimed from the sea, an experimental development in Ijburg near Amsterdam transforms the classic form of the garden. Divided from the sea, the bay’s water regulated by floodgates fills in the space between the floating building components. Besides practical considerations, the role of the symbolic contents of the garden is becoming increasingly tangible. It may function as the venue for recreation and relaxation, can isolate us from the street bustle or connect us with nature and landscape.
The Structuring of the Collection of 20th-century and Contemporary Examples
The latter half of this collection contains six chapters. International and Hungarian examples from the first half of the 20th century are followed by a similar selection from the latter half of the 20th century. We have used the same classification to present contemporary projects.
International Projects from the First Half of the 20th Century
The condition of housing stock seriously deteriorated in the first half of the 20th century because of the two world wars and the global economic crises in the 1930s. Shortage of housing was an urgent issue throughout Europe, combined with the high ratio of poor-quality housing lacking modern conveniences. As masses of people flocked to towns and cities searching for employment, a demographical boom was underway. The situation required a re-interpretation of housing, as well as the construction of new apartments.
Several architectural trends responded to housing issues. The British garden-city movement – such as Letchworth and Hampstead – blend the advantages of rural and urban lifestyles to reach harmony. Other developments embodying the German Bauhaus ideals. Housing estates from the exhibitions in Vienna, Stuttgart and Switzerland featuring modern apartments.
These forms of housing were typically meant for workers and sometimes for the middle-class, featuring identical flats with economical solutions. The Modernist movement deeply influenced the external appearance of these estates; the buildings are unadorned, minimalistic and truly functional. These distinguishing features are best illustrated by J. J. P. Oud’s Kiefhoek estate and the buildings of the Weissenhofsiedlung, Stuttgart.
Apartments, as a rule, were designed to suit contemporary comfort demands and changing family models. More and more women were employed, and new household appliances were appearance; both changes reflected in floor plans. A novelty of the design is the lack of servant’s quarters and the ambition to improve workers’ housing’s convenience and hygienic conditions. In Western Europe, there was a strong tendency to create independent private spheres for every family member while seeking modest dimensions and affordable costs to meet economic concerns. As a result, living areas tend to be very small as a rule. Laundry and two-way access (a household and a private one) to apartments appearing in the Weissenhofsiedlung Project prove that household-related activities still occupied fairly large floor areas.
Hungarian Projects from the First Half of the 20th Century
Highly influential international tendencies of the early 20th century did not leave Hungarian architecture unaffected. Two of the projects described below – namely, the Wekerle Housing Estate and that of Albertfalva – were inspired by the principles of the British garden city movement, while developments designed by Viktor Bőhm and Oszkár Füredi preserve stylistic features of Modernism with their vocabulary of simplicity and unadorned forms.
Simultaneous with the birth of the Modernist principles, the first half of the 20th century saw various attempts made to respond to the working class’s housing issues in Hungary. Typical examples were row house developments usually built in mining neighbourhoods to economise the utilisation of sites and minimise buildings costs. As a rule, housing complexes meant for employees of state institutions were facilitated by laws and motivated by tax advantages.
The developments described here were typically realised as public projects under state supervision with substantial government subsidies. These forms of housing were mainly targeted at the employees of public companies, while some projects were meant to improve middle-class housing conditions. The shortage of housing affecting workers flocking to cities from the countryside was a burning issue, thus spurring new housing projects.
The Wekerle, MÁV (Hungarian State Railways), and Albertfalva projects were large-scale developments defined by traditional principles of urban planning, symmetrical design and centrally placed plazas within a perpendicular system. Early 20th-century buildings still retained the stylistic features and technologies of fin-de-siècle projects. Additionally, the MÁV estate reflects the corporate image of the “Royal Hungarian Railways”. Over time, designers preferred unadorned simplicity, a desire reflected in buildings by Oszkár Füredi and Viktor Bőhm.
As for apartments, designers intended to develop at least two-room dwelling units with affordable rents for members of the targeted social layers. Accordingly, the Wekerle project was facilitated by legal regulations. Ground-floor plans typically correspond to small and compact apartments, with substantially smaller floor size than their equivalents in Western Europe.
International Projects from the Latter Half of the 20th century
After the devastating world wars, several countries had to face burning issues related to the housing shortage in the latter half of the century. The steady growth of the population and the activities of the architectural movements born in the first half of the century drew the attention of various architectural teams to housing issues once again.
Architects were engaged in a variety of specific issues depending on local features and problems in different countries. Famous projects in Scandinavian countries, Denmark and Finland, reflect both the traditional respect for nature and widespread use of prefab technology due to the longish winter season. Experimental apartment systems of Dutch Structuralists illustrate approaches to economic space utilisation in a small country, while projects from countries outside Europe, those of Morocco and Mauritania, focus on the challenges of their dry climates: shading and overexposure to the sun.
What is striking as a general issue is an ambition to keep the sensitive balance between the private sphere and communal co-existence. All over Europe, but especially in the West, designs were targeted to include a separate room for each person and sheltered parks and playgrounds in the centre of developments. With the spread of motorisation, the storage of cars posed a new challenge, much like the separation of motor vehicle traffic and pedestrian access. Both in number and character, transitional spaces connecting exteriors and interiors show a wide variety. More often than not, terraces, patios, front gardens and loggias connect the buildings.
Evolution in floor plans resulted in larger apartments and bedrooms than those of the first half of the century. At the same time, the dimensions of household rooms and ancillary areas decreased as household gadgets developed and became widespread. Interesting features of Danish developments is that the living room housed upstairs – owing to the scarcity of sunshine; and the integration of prefab technology to various extents. Example include the modular houses of Hallebaek, which can be assembled from blocks, and Diagoon houses in Delft, which allow for flexible follow-ups.
Hungarian Projects from the Latter Half of the 20th Century
The post-war, Socialist era heralded the representation of the working class and thus artificially swelled this social layer. With workplaces offered in towns and cities, masses of people flocked from the countryside, while the majority of town- and city-dwellers typically lived in poor-quality flats and tenements, owing to the housing shortage caused by war damage. In response to the burning issues of housing, projects were launched from the 1950s when the economy and building industry started to grow again. The government-managed housing projects were centralised as a rule. Low-rise high-density developments were rare and less of a priority than high-rise multi-apartment buildings with prefab technology since they were easier to produce within short notice. Low-rise, high-density developments became more widespread after resolving the housing shortage and the increase of housing dimensions.
Although the country was separated from Western Europe by the Iron Curtain, architectural trends still influenced designs – as is illustrated by the separate parking areas and the ambition to keep communal and private spaces in balance, which are featured in the projects described here (e. g., the estate made up of two-storey terraced houses in Perbál). The majority of the developments included in this chapter were realised as projects of building societies and the OTP (National Savings Bank) instead of public projects under state supervision.
These projects typically offered dwellers a garden of their own and apartments with configurations guaranteeing privacy, free of outside observation. However, developments were usually realised on one site due to legal restrictions imposed on housing projects all over the country. As a result, estate-style developments were few, instead of the mushrooming “group houses” that contained few dwelling units and developed as “patch sites”. During the Socialist era, the political system favoured and supported certain branches of arts, resulting in the proliferation of “artist’s apartments”, such as the row houses equipped with studios in Szentendre and Miskolc, or apartments featuring studios in Hódmezővásárhely.
As an adjustment to contemporary demands, the size of dwelling units was on the increase, but floor sizes were still modest compared to western standards. Apartments were increasingly equipped with modern conveniences, and as their size grew, communal areas and private bedrooms were separated. At the same time, the kitchen retained its household functions and was separated from the living room as such.
International Examples of Contemporary Low-Rise, High-Density Developments
The revolution in communications technology brought about global trends in the contemporary architectural community as well. It sped up the intellectual mobilisation of cross-pollinating cultures, global trends appeared, and local circumstances were temporarily relegated to the background. At the same time, we can observe an approach that stresses the individual; instead of architectural schools, we rather speak of star architects. Besides trends in globalisation, the characteristics of a given area and its local issues, inherited over generations, still remain – hence, the sculptural nature of Spanish examples, closed off from the sky to protect from the sun; the density and the inherited inclination to experiment in Dutch examples; as well as English architect Peter Barber’s constructions, which are unique and monolithic, while still conforming to the formal world of London.
A common demand is to break the monotony that arises from repetition or to fortify that very rhythm. Among the examples for breaking the monotony, different techniques were used to establish identity. In the case of the Borneo Island construction in Amsterdam, a different architect was involved with each plot; in the case of Kabelwerk, colourful façades were employed; and for Hagen Island, diverse cladding on buildings. Examples of emphasis upon the uniform rhythm of units include the Cyclops Row designed by Maurice Nio in Rotterdam or the Spanish row houses in Cadiz.
Due to the increased spread of car usage in the new millennium, the placement of parking spaces has become a significant design question. The demand for privacy and seclusion has grown in direct proportion with a prosperous society, while demand for community spaces and their areas have decreased. The majority of construction is in apartments valued on the market; social housing and rental flats are built more rarely. The floor area of dwelling units has not grown in comparison with the past. Not without precedent, demand for flexible, adjustable spaces has reasserted itself. With the further development of household appliances, we can observe the reduction of household spaces to a minimum, even the size of cabinets. American kitchen designs are common.
Hungarian Projects of Contemporary Low-Rise High-Density Developments
We have defined this chapter in the chronology of contemporary Hungarian developments as a period starting after the change of the political system in 1989, since this era brought about radical changes in the country. By the end of the Communist system, the participation of the state significantly decreased in home-building, while the housing stock was privatised, the market reconfigured, and groups of building contractors and investors appeared.
The restructuring of society, the opening up of markets and the investment of accumulated capital, generated a large-scale construction boom. The most widespread form of housing was the “residential community”. Being market-targeted, this form of housing had the potential to realize higher profit margins. Low-rise, high-density developments remained scarce throughout this period and are primarily concentrated in agglomerations. Projects in Budapest referred to here, such as the apartments in Barlang Street and Víznyelő Street, were typically meant for higher social strata, especially among the upper-middle class. In these cases, architects asserted a powerful vision if investors could be convinced to shift over to low-rise, high-density developments. This situation is illustrated by a few projects described below.
Restrictions imposed on housing by regulations in Hungary tend, as a rule, to confine development to one site at a time, which is the reason why housing projects integrating multiple sites remain sporadic. Schemes typically feature separate car parks, just like that of the project in Víznyelő Street, Budapest. Apartments tend to realize the advantages of private gardens in a denser, urban or urban-style environment. In this context, an approach respecting nature is especially prioritized. The development with a shared garden in Barlang Street, by shaping and preserving its original environment, offers a fine example of this.
A mai kor jóléti igényeinek megfelelően a házak alaprajzi kialakítása a földszinten a család közösségi tereit összenyitott formában, amerikai konyhát, étkezős nappalit rejt, a hálószobák a felső szinten sorakoznak. A tervezők a korábbiaknál nagyobb hangsúlyt fektetnek a privát elkülönülésre, a sűrűség inkább a gazdaságos telekhasználatból fakad, a közösségi együttélésnek többnyire nincs hangsúlyozott szerepe.
Sustainable and Energy-Efficient Low-Rise High-Density Developments
Because we face both global and local crises, sustainability is the most extensively used term nowadays; the interpretation of it still requires some explanation in the complex system of definitions. The most widely known approach to sustainability is based on three cornerstones of the concept, distinguishing economic, environmental and social sustainability. Sciences focus on various aspects of this concept while breaking down its integral unity into several parts. Housing as such and architecture generally associate themselves with each of the three pillars of sustainability, true to the complexity of design and construction. Hence, the challenge for architects is to create a response integrating the threefold criteria and find an approach that unites all aspects of the concept. Thus, sustainability in architecture means a quest for individual responses in each case. The projects described here are quests for a sustainable future, apropos of which we shall discuss the correlations of the three cornerstones as they apply to low-rise, high-density housing developments.
Economic sustainability in housing is associated with the concept of “affordable dwelling”, available to everyone in proportion to their income, including cost-efficient and rational construction, maintenance and management. One of the projects described here is Alejandro Aravena’s housing estate in Chile, designed for families already living there. The three apartments designed by Anna Heringer in Rudrapur is a fine example of housing using locally available materials without relying on external resources; thus, it is sustainable in the long run. The intelligent house in Matosinhos differs from the previous projects since it focuses on the economic aspect of maintenance and management to minimize reliance on external resources during its life-cycle following construction.
Accelerated industrial production has brought about the phenomena of environmental pollution. The ecological footprint of a human being today is several times higher than that of people living a century ago. Besides, the global population boom involves accelerated consumption of finite resources. Solving issues such as global warming and reducing the ecological footprint are factual challenges demanding communal responses. Excessive environmental burden is exorbitant in the building industry since it causes almost 40% of carbon dioxide emission. Environmental sustainability draws attention to the rational and restrained utilisation of tight resources and the appreciation and protection of environments. The Parisian project with the “use what you find” approach is a fine example of rationally recycling existing values. Meanwhile, intelligent houses and floating homes are exemplary models of reducing reliance on fossil fuels by using renewable energies while meeting contemporary comfort demands.
The aspect of social sustainability manifests in the autonomous forms of societal co-operation, the shared communal utilisation of resources, and the economic approach of old times. Low-rise, high-density developments boosting collective co-existence rely on sharing construction charges, infrastructure, maintenance and management. One example illustrating this is Clay Field in England, Suffolk, which has reduced its ecological footprint by sharing resources and local responses to needs and demands as rural communities do. Another similar project is that of Vandkusten, a team of Danish architects. As a follow-up concept integrating natural or semi-natural existence and Danish “co-housing” tradition, this development features mutual care and minimal reliance on external resources.
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