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Radical Housing: Designing Multi-Generational and Co-Living Housing for All
Radical Housing explores the planning, technical, financial, health-based and social background for developing multi-generational homes and co-living. Abundantly illustrated with case studies and plans from projects across the UK and abroad, this book inform sand inspires the delivery of alternative approaches to affordable and flexible housing, and is an essential text for architecture practitioners, students, and community groups.
- GenresNonfictionArchitecture
160 pages, ebook
Published May 31, 2020
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April 30, 2023
Radical Housing presents a general overview of housing that the author considers ‘radical,’ namely multigenerational housing and co-housing. While it was a helpful resource for finding projects to look into, I found that it lacked nuance, didn’t provide a lot of new insight, and was a missed opportunity for collaborative writing.
As someone who is Asian and from a culture where multigenerational housing is the norm, it was obvious from the beginning that the book was written by someone unfamiliar with different nuanced familial dynamics that may exist. The chapters go straight into the architecture without acknowledging the socio-cultural context that the dialogue exists in, which in this instance plays a part in enabling how the work is created. It mentions different cultures seemingly without making an attempt at understanding how dynamics within that culture might affect the architectural outcome for most projects.
The book also didn’t delve into enough insight about those projects that I can’t just find on Archdaily or Dezeen. Where it was provided, ‘insights’ were repetitive and largely just ideas that I consider commonplace urban design strategies - designing for people instead of cars, allowing for green routes, avoiding overlooking outlooks into neighbours homes and mixing typology types. These may have been radical a few decades back, but not in 2023. Co-housing is perhaps the more out of the ordinary concept in the book, but again glazes over the socio-cultural context that it exists in.
More nuance and insight could’ve been provided if the book had been written more collaboratively rather than mainly by one author. For a book that repeats the word ‘diversity’ numerous times, it lacks different points of view. It’s a shame that a book about collaborative design processes wasn’t written through a process that reflects its very purpose.
The idea behind the book has merit, but if a second edition is ever re-edited and republished it could benefit from more careful consideration of the context and process that the work and book exist in.
As someone who is Asian and from a culture where multigenerational housing is the norm, it was obvious from the beginning that the book was written by someone unfamiliar with different nuanced familial dynamics that may exist. The chapters go straight into the architecture without acknowledging the socio-cultural context that the dialogue exists in, which in this instance plays a part in enabling how the work is created. It mentions different cultures seemingly without making an attempt at understanding how dynamics within that culture might affect the architectural outcome for most projects.
The book also didn’t delve into enough insight about those projects that I can’t just find on Archdaily or Dezeen. Where it was provided, ‘insights’ were repetitive and largely just ideas that I consider commonplace urban design strategies - designing for people instead of cars, allowing for green routes, avoiding overlooking outlooks into neighbours homes and mixing typology types. These may have been radical a few decades back, but not in 2023. Co-housing is perhaps the more out of the ordinary concept in the book, but again glazes over the socio-cultural context that it exists in.
More nuance and insight could’ve been provided if the book had been written more collaboratively rather than mainly by one author. For a book that repeats the word ‘diversity’ numerous times, it lacks different points of view. It’s a shame that a book about collaborative design processes wasn’t written through a process that reflects its very purpose.
The idea behind the book has merit, but if a second edition is ever re-edited and republished it could benefit from more careful consideration of the context and process that the work and book exist in.
Displaying 1 of 1 review