Social Housing in Venezuela
Developing a system/policy of social housing according to the Venezuela's particular conditions.
Developing a system/policy of social housing according to the Venezuela's particular conditions.
Housing in Venezuela is an very important matter. The housing deficit is around 3.000.000 units and every year are produced no more than 70.000 units. The ministry of Housing and Public Works grounded an unit to take charge of the design and research of new prototypes that fit to the social needs and can be faster and better build.
Taking this in mind the design unit have developed different prototypes that fit to different conditions - urban areas, rural areas, high density, shanty towns, and other cases identified - and are part of a system that starts with idea that the housing unit is a family, so a groups of families are a community and a group of communities are a major community, or the same a group of housing units are a building, a group of buildings are a ‚block‘ and a group of ‚blocks‘ are a planning area.
This simple idea drove the design of a serie of interchangeable housing units that allow the designers and developers achieve different configurations of density, image, characteristics, etc.
Most of the construction pieces of the houses are interchangeable and can be easy industrialized in community factories, creating not only homes but also jobs.
Taking this in mind the design unit have developed different prototypes that fit to different conditions - urban areas, rural areas, high density, shanty towns, and other cases identified - and are part of a system that starts with idea that the housing unit is a family, so a groups of families are a community and a group of communities are a major community, or the same a group of housing units are a building, a group of buildings are a ‚block‘ and a group of ‚blocks‘ are a planning area.
This simple idea drove the design of a serie of interchangeable housing units that allow the designers and developers achieve different configurations of density, image, characteristics, etc.
Most of the construction pieces of the houses are interchangeable and can be easy industrialized in community factories, creating not only homes but also jobs.
Front view of the urban single family house prototype | The relatively small ground area allows to build more houses with less infrastructure grids, saving resources and maximizing the acceso to them
To find a balance between private and public spheres are presented inner an outer spaces, that are coordinated with the whole idea of the urban unit. In case of individual homes they have a backyard with a similar footprint as the house's
Aerial view of the standard urban block with multifamily housing prototypes | The idea of the block comes from the spanish foundation cities. Most of the cities in Venezuela where founded under the guidelines of the India‘s Law by the spanish conquerors, those sectors are the most efficient sectors of the cities due to different reasons such as the mixed use, the inclusion of parks in the urban grid, the order of the public services and infraestructure, etc. In this way that seems to be the best way to approach to the reconstitution of the venezuelan cities, theres above an 60% of he population that lives in no formal conditions, that means a serios disbalance in the acces to basic infraestructure and services, like security or water.
View of an isolated multifamily house | The design of the blocks as standardized pieces is to include not only the buildings but also all the urban elements like public telephones, trashcans, traffic lightings and other elements. Also the lower leves in the street sides are dedicated to small community comerce to promote the mixed use developments
General view of a block core | Those cores are not only to park the cars, even the most important use is the recreational one. Every block have a vast recreative area that can be adapted in function to the general shape of the development, constituing a grid of public spaces that enhances the life quality.
