Elena Bellini, arch.

Phd Student, Department of Architecture, University of Florence

Alessia Macchi, arch. Researcher, Department of Architecture, University of Florence

Caring for Our Common Home: Sustainable, Healthy, Just Cities & Settlements

53rd International Making Cities Livable Conference

Rome, June 13-17, 2016

TITLE: ADAPTABILITY IN ARCHITECTURE, A WAY OF RESILIENCE

ABSTRACT

“For things to remain the same, everything must change”. This famous sentence, taken from
Tomasi Di Lampedusa’s “Leopard”, suggests us an important message: cities can last only if
they are able to change, being resilient and updating the way they are planned and built.
In a “liquid society” the challenge for the residential projects is to give answers to housing
needs upcoming every day, being at the same time more concerned with social and environ-
mental sustainability. To last and be still useful, a social housing unit should be adaptable to
the requests of the changing society passing through it. This aspect of temporariness intro-
duces the architectural theme of impermanence that could be read not only as a quick answer
to a specific housing emergency, but especially as an alternative way of designing the social
housing itself. As our societies, that are not definitive and immutable, residential design
should be flexible, according to an ever-changing household. That leads directly to the con-
cept of adaptability that represents the ability of a house to change, accommodating the
maximum range of inhabitants. The unique way to obtain this goal is to adopt a new design
approach by using architectural modules, optimizing the space and its use, minimizing private
spaces and introducing shared facilities. Furthermore, to achieve resilience and the possibility
to last in a low carbon footprint future, architecture should maximize low-tech and low-
impact constructing solutions. As a result, three key words of innovation take shape: inclu-
sion, adaptability and sharing.

KEYWORDS: inclusion, adaptability, sharing, temporariness, DIY

1
2
Nowadays the context we operate in and the background where the research fields are
developed result exacerbate by different related crisis that modify in an irreversible way our
approach to problems. Global changes affect all the world relational structures and reflect on
every single aspect of our societies, starting from economic and environmental problems up to
social difficulties. In the process of trying to find answers to this debacle, cities are strongly
involved through planning and innovation tools, related to the concept of “smart city”, in the
attempt to improve the life quality of urban areas. Each aspect of our everyday life, such as
public transportation, waste management or social housing, could be improved to achieve a
reasonable level of social and environmental sustainability. In this panorama necessarily the
social housing field is deeply involved and tends to a radical change to accept the challenge
and the features of this change are strongly connected with the economic and geographic
background we are acting in.
Our research is focused in how the social housing field approaches that challenge and takes
start from the Italian territory to examine in depth the regional area of Tuscany. This context is
characterized by a complex housing situation, where the total number of inhabitants has
remained substantially stable during 2013 and 2014, while the relate percentage of
immigrants has grown (+12%). In the meanwhile the unemployment percentage has passed
from 8,7% to 10,1%, registering the higher level of the last twenty years, and the population's
age is higher than the national average (45,6 vs. 43,7 years old), due to the presence of a
24,8% of person over 65 years old, that's to say a quarter of the total amount of the regional
inhabitants. The family unit is composed by an average of 2,27 person, while the single
person families represent a 32% of the total amount (IV Rapporto Condizione Abitativa -Istat-
2015).
The analysis' area identifies the public housing as a driver for the innovative housing policies
and elects it as an important tool for the city governance and the management of urban
changes, as well as a great support for the building industry. Also in this context the law of
average reflects a delicate situation: in Tuscany the act of eviction from social housing units
registered an increase (+15,5%) and in 95,4% that situation is due to lateness for firing
(27,5%) (IV Rapporto Condizione Abitativa -Istat- 2015).
There are 11 local authorities designate to manage social housing in Tuscany, distributed in
the different administrative areas of the territory. Their assignment is to receive financial
resources from the regional residential department and reassign them to renovate the existent
heritage or increase it with new building structures. This organizations struggle between
scarcity of public resources and the need to preserve residential buildings from degradation
and design ageing, in a society that changes continuously and asks for energy efficient
buildings. To take consciousness of the existence of an extended residential heritage that
represents an opportunity to avoid more soil consumption is another important aspect of our
research, related to an approach that propose connections between social housing itself and
larger policies of urban and social renovation. The old residential units built in the decades
after the second world war, from the fifties to the eighties, could became the protagonists of
important experimenting with innovative pathways for regeneration, going far beyond simple
conservation, restoration, physical rehabilitation or re purposing of a site and introducing
socially and environmentally innovative solutions.
“Housing is not only about bricks and mortar, housing is not only about professionals given
that users are a vital part of the housing process, housing must fit into its local fabric, and
housing is about processes that extend over the time”. (Kendall, 2004)
A sustainable urban regeneration starts from the conviction that buildings last, trough a never-
ending design process, that should give an answer to the different needs of our impermanent
and ever-changing society. The renovation of existing buildings is the first sustainable action,
that represents the ability to adapt and recycle, to be a useful resource for the new society and

3
for the future. Sustainability is not only an environmental process, but it represents also the
possibility to change and to be useful in the entire society's life cycle.
In this way, the architectural unused heritage of our cities can be seen as an opportunity,
representing the driver for the sustainable growth of urban areas. In our cities, characterised
by a high density built environment, where the major problem is represented by the soil
consumption, the regeneration could be seen as a chance to make our cities healthy and
liveable: not only by the rehabilitation of historic and cultural inner cities, but also by the
renovation of the degrading suburban. What is important it's the capability to make a
difference between the stability, represented by the values, the memory, the history, the
culture, the 'structure', the 'base-building', and the temporariness, represented by the
impermanence of our society, the different needs of the individuals, the changing of people's
habits, the transformation of the households and their living.
In this panorama, which could be the role of an architect? The architect is one of the actors of
the design process and he has the social responsibility to understand the built environment's
values and the different levels of possible transformations. "The architect has the role to
understand the relationship between the inhabitants and the architecture and between the
architecture and the environment; it has the responsibility to understand the necessity to
change the built environment and to adapt the architecture to human needs and measure"
(Direttiva 85/384/CEE, 1985). The role of the architect is to develop methods of design and
building construction that are compatible with the transformation of the society, seeing the
built environment in a dynamic and resilient way. The idea of 'open building' represents the
ability to last over the time and to remain attractive, safe and useful, by the contemporary
concept of mixture of stability and change.
“Open Building is the term used to indicate a number of different but related ideas about the
making of environment, for instance: the idea of distinct levels of intervention in the built
environment, such as those represented by ‘support’ and ‘infill’, or by urban design and
architecture; the idea that users/inhabitants may make design decisions as well; the idea that,
more generally, designing is a process characterised by distributed responsibility, with
multiple participants also including different kinds of professionals; the idea that the interface
between technical systems allows the replacement of one system with another performing the
same function (as with different fit-out systems applied in a same-base-building); the idea that
built environment is in constant transformation and change must be recognised and
understood; the idea that built environment is the product of ongoing, never-ending, design
process in which environment transforms part by part.” (Kendall, 1995)
These new architectural criteria include the ideas of capacity: understanding the different
levels of the architecture, transforming to adapt at the different individuals' needs, 'fill' with
the new values and inhabit. This leads to the idea that the public housing is not permanent,
occupants can move in and out, and the design process has to enable each occupying power,
trough the concept of flexibility. A sustainable regeneration should be a process able to give
an answer to the economic, social and environmental development: understanding the built
environment's values; leaving the 'structure' of the building unaltered, to preserve its memory,
but also to guarantee energy and economic savings; transforming the 'in-fill' levels to adapt
the built environment to the different needs; making inhabitants the main actors of the design
process by the flexibility of the construction, giving them the opportunity to fit their own
spaces and to grow the sense of identity and social belonging. This can be summarize by a
few words: the “act of dwelling”. Looking at the every-day reality, these concepts lead to one
of the most important and complex themes in social housing: what can be defined as common
and what as individual? In our opinion, this distinction should be rethought as a potential
relationship between flexibility and sharing, by a new design approach that will be based on
the use of architectural modules, on the optimisation of the space and its use and on the

4
acceptance of a minimum of private spaces compared with the introduction of shared
facilities. The stereotype of the traditional single-family home should be replaced by the new
alternative concept of temporary housing. It is a new way of thinking the social housing,
where the public administrations could be able to offer different typologies of housing to fit to
different users and to reduce the waste of our common resources, adapting the architectural
modules or moving people, in answer to their lives' transformation; changing to remain
sustainable during the entire society's life cycle. In conclusion, temporary housing is based on
sharing the common, adapting the individual and moving through the changes. The
participation of the inhabitants as the main actors of the process is an answer to their need of
belonging to the society, that makes them first owners of their common public heritage/estate.
Their contribution is an opportunity to create social and cultural values, by an idea of
inclusion, cohesion and integration in the community. DIY – 'do it yourself' represents a
method of building or renovation without the direct aid of experts or professionals. These
practises would be possible with the improvement of two areas of intervention: programmes
of education and training in building and low-tech construction; the development of the role
of the social mediator, as the catalyst of cultural identity and community inclusion.
This kind of participation could be also seen as an opportunity for immigrants, that are going
to represent the major part of the users/inhabitants in the public housing, to take part in the
community and to learn new skills to facilitate the inclusion and the integration in the society.
It can be considered as a sort of exchange: 'help the local authorities to help your-self'. In this
panorama, where the local authorities are becoming poorer and poorer in resources, it can
represent a solution to the economic and social shortage of our societies.
It is a process of social promotion and social sustainability, to increase our quality of life,
leading to the idea to make healthy, liveable and sustainable cities.
Tuscany is one of the first regions in Italy, whit Lazio and Puglia, where was written and
approved a self-construction and self-renovation act: Decreto Regione Toscana n. 1945/2012.
This legislative decree affirms the self-building methodologies and the possibility of
inhabitants to constitute a work cooperative or a society of promotion to develop “non-profit
activities in the social interest, for associates or third parties, and insuring respect for
associates' freedom and human dignity” (L.R. 42/2002). The promotion of these practises
could be an opportunity for the transmission of knowledge about regional technologies and
architecture, by the development of low-tech constructions and the use of natural and local
materials. It represents also a chance to save costs, for an economic sustainability of the
intervention and for the promotion of new green local economies, but also to save energy by
low carbon footprint and low-impact constructing solutions, looking at an environmental
sustainability.
In this perspective, the reuse process that leads to the regeneration of the existent buildings
should proceed by a modular approach, using a design that simplify spaces to let them out a
specific function. The 'in-fill' elements could be seen as flexible containers of different
functions linked to a static 'structure' that provides all the services that require a fixed position
or tool. This modules should have a low-tech design and minimal dimensions that could hold
unspecific activities: in this way two near residential units could easily be modified by adding
or removing a single adjacent module from the entire apartment. The dimensional aspect is
important to suggest a new order of priority between private and shared spaces in social
housing. Introducing the concept of minimizing private spaces, creating tiny modules of
living functions, underline the importance of empowering the shared part of a residential
building as a way to achieve an optimization of space and resources. This strategy leads to a
high level of adaptability and permits to introduce some DIY practices in the social housing
field. The users/inhabitants can be a part of this transformation process, giving a social

5
identity to the living spaces and demonstrating DIY practices potential as sustainable
development.
Furthermore, following a low-tech and low-impact design strategy permits the rescue of local,
natural and recyclable materials, according to a circular economy perspective. Forgotten
materials such as straw, earth, wood or cane sticks could be reintroduced in the building
industry, generating a positive process to demonstrate heritage potential as a powerful
economic, social and environmental catalyst for regeneration, economic growth and
improvement of people’s well-being and living environments.

Via Cefalonia case study: an example of regeneration project.

We propose, as case study, an example of renovation of a typical 80's social housing building
in Empoli, a little town in Tuscany (30 km far from Florence) in the middle of Italy. Empoli is
the main town of Unione dei Comuni dell'Empolese Valdelsa, one of the eleven areas of social
housing management in Tuscany. This is an example of a typical construction in the suburbs
of our cities: a 6-floors building composed by three blocks of 22 apartments with a dimension
of about 85 square meters, built with a concrete structure and brick walls, a technology that is
difficult to modify for the flexible use of the building during its life time.

6
The public administration has the role to assign the apartments to the different inhabitants, but
it is rarely able to answer to the changes during their life and to control the transformation of
the households during the time; in this way, there is no mobility of users and the housing
becomes permanent and unalterable. A survey carried out in 2015 shows the numbers of
inhabitants in the social housing in the area of Empolese Valdelsa.

AREA OF EMPOLESE VALDELSA (TUSCANY)

TYPOLOGIES OF HOUSEHOLD
1 user 1 user - over 85 immigrants other

24%

4%
63% 9%

Each municipality deals with the assignment of the housing units in their territory, so they
have a list with all the data of the households: number of components, nationality, age,
income, case of disability. The database of Empoli's housing management represents the
situation in our case study building: the major part of the households is composed by families
of 3 or 4 people, only a little part is represented by big families and, on the contrary, a large
percentage is concerned by small households of 1 or 2 people.

7
 CASE STUDY:
VIA CEFALONIA n. 1 - EMPOLI
EMPOLESE VALDELSA (TUSCANY)
4% TYPOLOGIES OF HOUSEHOLD

1 user - over 85 years old

14%
18% 2 users (2 adults)

14% 2 users (1 adult + 1

14% son/daughter)
Italian families (3-4 users)
9%
27% Italian families (5-7 users)
Immigrants families (3-4
users)

It is quite simple to denote immediately that the dimension of the apartments is not
proportionate to the number of people, to their habits and their needs. That represents also a
bad optimisation of the space and, more in general, a waste of our common resources. In fact,
if we quickly calculate the housing potential of this building we understand that it is used
only for its 70% : only in the first block of Via Cefalonia building (our case study) it is
possible to calculate 102 potential inhabitants, instead of the 71 effective users at the moment!

8
 CASE STUDY:
VIA CEFALONIA n. 1 - EMPOLI
EMPOLESE VALDELSA (TUSCANY)
TYPOLOGIES OF HOUSING UNIT
near 45 mq near 65 mq near 85 mq

4%

23%

73%

Our proposal starts from the idea that each building is composed by different levels and that it
is important to understand what it can be considered as stable - base building - and what could
be changed and adapted to the new different needs of the inhabitants - infill part. In this case,
we consider as base building the structure of the construction, the stairs block and a central
point between the different housing units, considered stable for the services/facilities. The
other parts would be flexible, built with a dry structural work, in housing units that would be
able to adapt during the time. The facilities would be the stable core of the structure, but all
the other partitions would define flexible spaces, shared from the different units, according to
the temporary needs of the inhabitants.

9
As we can see from the diagrams, in these different proposals for living solutions the number
of users increases, maintaining the same total housing area, and it is possible to offer a larger
typologies of housing units, accommodating a bigger number of households and adapting to
their different needs during their life time.

The new architecture should be (con)temporary: leading with people, adapting and being
resilient. Temporary housing could be a solution to the emergencies, it could be a support
during the renovation, but it could be seen also as a definitive solution of our temporary lives.

10
BIBLIOGRAPHY:

Bauman, Z. (2003) Modernità liquida, Laterza, Roma - Bari

Chatterton, P. (2015) Low impact living: a field guide to ecological, affordable community
building, Routledge, New York - London

Kendall, S. (2004) An open building strategy for achieving dwelling unity autonomy in multi-
unit housing in Housing and Society, vol. 31 n. 1, pp. 89-99

Kendall, S. Teicher, J. (1999) Residential open building, London: Spon

May, J. Reid, A. (2010) Architettura senza architetti. Guida alle costruzioni spontanee di tutto
il mondo, Rizzoli Editori, Milano

Rossi Prodi, F. (a cura di) (2015) Abitare Sociale – Modelli Architettonici E Urbanistici Per
L’housing, Alinea Editore, Firenze

Wolf, M. McQuitty, S. (2011 ) Understanding the do-it-yourself consumer: DIY motivations

and outcomes, Academy of Marketing Science, Springer, London

11