Community Living

“But we have a right to ask ‘why’ housing should be cheap as possible and not, for example, rather expensive; ‘why’ instead of making every effort to reduce it to minimum levels of floor area, space, of thicknesses, of materials, etc, we should not try to make dwellings spacious, protected, insulated, comfortable, well-equipped, rich in opportunities for privacy, communication, exchange, personal creativity, etc.”

Housing, whether single family residential or multistory mixed-use apartments, has become a building type that almost has no need for an architect to work on it. If somebody wants to build a house, they look at a catalog, find one they like, and get almost the exact one built for them. Apartment buildings have almost become a developer’s game as finding an efficient design that can get them the most bang for their buck, regardless of how it looks or how it works with the surrounding context and community. This method of building housing may work well for the users who live inside the space, but what about the surrounding effects that these buildings make?

8Tallet sits as an object within a field in Copenhagen, but what makes the project so successful is the community that it creates within the design. The use of “interior” streets that connect all of the units’ front yards helps emphasize the community social aspect of a neighborhood in the application of a multi-story apartment building. The inclusion of a day care center and café help strengthen the community connection. Even if this isn’t the best precedent for effective housing that builds a community, couldn’t strategies be taken from this project to help strengthen the current housing projects that are being built?