Towards a new affordable housing approach: A system-thinking set of criteria to assess quality
Considering that the built environment footprint is expected to double by the second half of this century, mainly driven by growth – both economic and demographic – in developing countries, reconciling several tensions related to this expansion is of paramount importance. Certainly, accommodating g...
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| Format: | Thesis |
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Massachusetts Institute of Technology
2024
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| Online Access: | https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/155629 https://orcid.org/0009-0000-5647-5927 |
| Summary: | Considering that the built environment footprint is expected to double by the second half of this century, mainly driven by growth – both economic and demographic – in developing countries, reconciling several tensions related to this expansion is of paramount importance. Certainly, accommodating growth without sacrificing sustainability – considering prevalent manufacturing processes that enable the construction sector yield a substantial portion of global GHG emissions – and providing affordable housing without neglecting quality. Thus, a deceivably simple question arises: what is affordable quality housing? Evidently, the question contains an opportunity – arguably, also an obligation – to employ a system-thinking perspective that observes – and is guided by – the relationships between housing and its broader urban system. So far, pervasive affordable housing development models (typically categorizing inert metrics as economic, social, and sustainable) have proven insufficient in several developing countries for their disregard to a system-thinking approach. The goal of this work is to build a system-thinking approach that will enable a two-way dialogue between further research that better equip housing development stakeholders with the necessary set of criteria to think and act having in mind the expected functions that housing shall provide – enabling performance comparisons between multiple design concepts until desirable results are achieved by iterative improvements – and the empirical observations that reflect the dynamic nature of both housing needs and the methods to analyze and fulfill them. |
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