ABSTRACT
Of all building types it is housing — and in particular
public housing — that is most exposed to outside
influences. Politics, economics, social demographics,
the design of housing more than architects usually
acknowledge. Housing is too often taken by architects
and historians away from the contingent forces that
shape it, and shunted into an autonomous cul-de-sac,
there to be ordered into typologies or described as
part of an architectural value system of aesthetics or
technique. (F 2) Whilst housing may be easier for the
architect to 'control' when it is in this cul-de-sac, the
reality is somewhat different. To engage with the history
of housing, one has to eschew any autonomy and instead
fully acknowledge the range of external forces that affect
(Fig 2.2)
25 onwards. Aerial view of development with over 1000
dwellings, typical of the period in providing mass housing in the face of acute housing shortages. Q
the production of housing. This chapter identifies those
episodes when flexible housing has come to the fore and
in particular identifies the wider influences that led
designers or architects to look to flexible housing as a
solution. Three key drivers influenced the development
of flexible housing. The first, in the 1920s, arose out of
the need for European social housing programmes to
provide mass housing. The resultant downwards shift in
space standards, as well as new methods of construction,
prompted architects to develop designs that allowed
flexible usage so that users were not constrained by the
new minimum standards. The second driver, starting in
the 1930s and 1940s and continuing to the present day,
arose out of a belief that prefabrication and emerging
technologies could and should provide solutions to mass
housing provision. It was thought that flexibility would
be inherent in industrially prefabricated and system-
atised buildings and their components. Thirdly, the move
towards participation and user involvement in the 1960s
and 1970s led to a renewed interest in flexible housing as
a means of providing user choice. What is apparent in all
these episodes is that flexible housing is most successful
as a response to real and pressing needs. It is much less
successful, or even counterproductive, when it is treated
as a self-contained credo, employed by architects as an
end in itself as opposed to a means to an end.
