Good Housing Should Not Be Hard
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- čas přidán 24. 07. 2023
- Kevin Hui and Andrew Maynard wondering the streets of Madrid and discussing the fundamentals to good urban housing.
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I think it's a must for architectural students to see the world. The problem with Australia is that we have no other reference point. I am a house sitter, and have sat in Spain, the UK and Australia. Our suburbs, with 1/4 acre blocks are dead in the day, there's no one around, no life to them, they are quiet and lonely places to age, or be a Mum who doesn't have a support group close by. These areas really rely on the car, very little public transport and when the bus rolls through, it sometimes is only once or twice an hour. Cities built around cars haven't really worked out well for community.
"Custodian of good ideas"
Love it!!!
Awesome thing about pavement is that it is also more permeable than asphalt, and actually lets the water get in the ground to keep your street trees happy
This is my favorite video so far. Currently doing masters at UoM. For my entrance application, I wrote exactly about this topic. To quote myself "I want to change the way Australians think about housing". Yes its the policy makers, but it's also the population being so reluctant to change or consider alternative ways of living. Great video.
Nice conversation. Issues that transcend borders.
there better be more of these kinds of videos! To be able to join your tours must be amazing because you get to see, learn and experience the WHAT WHY HOWs of these amazing spaces that can really inspire students and architects to design better. These kinds of videos are a must watch for arch students!!
when i go to my home village for summer it’s always refreshing to experience the indigenous architecture of my grandmother’s mud house, i always made more friends there >over my boring two story modern house that feels just like a dead beautiful facade w no thought of interaction in the name of course “privacy”
This would come down to the cost of living. A quick search online and I found Madrid is 41% cheaper then living in Sydney. That’s 41% more income you have to spend on food, health, fitness and social events etc, Which makes that situation more viable. Yes, if Australians had smaller homes they would have more income to spend on living. But why do Australians require such large homes??
I love this! We don't design in a bubble, we're constantly taking into consideration the surrounding context, bylaws and regulations. I feel that as architects we have a responsibility to advocate for better rules and regulations for buildings and construction because we are directly affected by it!
As someone from Malaysia, I have fond memories of playing with other kids in the shared "Five-Foot-Way" of my grandparent's home that adjoined a row of terrace houses. Occasionally, we would run into a neighbour's living room that opened out to the "Five-Foot-Way" and even spend the night there. Living without strict boundaries which we often see here in Australia made for a harmonious community living. 'Privacy' and 'noise' are such big words here, unfortunately.
Andrew is so passionate in this one 😊❤
Excellent points are raised again. Please speak more about unfashionable topics 🙏🙏🙏
Great chat. Our current suburban housing model is broken. We are obsessed with detached houses but in the current new build areas the lots are so small the houses are virtually attached. With what amounts to courtyards for outdoor space. Might as well join up the homes and create more shared open space.
cool episode, you know always i keep checking new content from Archimarathon
Great timing will be interesting to see what the massive overhaul to planning in Victoria brings
100% Kevin, Andrew! great observations, time for change here in Australia.
Totally agree, the lack of affordable, healthy, and sustainable housing in Australian cities isn’t a design problem, it’s a regulatory and institutional failure. Planning regulation is the obvious failure, however so is transport regulation such as Austroad design guidance, warrants, level of service measures, etc. Our institutional arrangements also fail us, road network regulations are used to design and manage streets, and traffic engineers design our most valuable public spaces. It actually amazing we’ve been able to preserve as much walkable and transit oriented places that we have.
I love how passionate Andrew is but he really has a point!
You guys should go speak with Donald Shoup, Paul Barter or one of the planning/parking crowd. Requirements for providing parking is where so many of the problems start. Road access, increased land costs, basement entries, unactivated facades, reduced interactions beyween residents...
Totally agree with your observation climate permitting.
😢 sadly for us living in Canada a m snowfall has to have somewhere to go. So little curbless Lanes don't work. Especially when you need heavy equipment to remove snow .
And yes our city legislation makes it impossible coexist even with nature. eg: Landscaping front yard with native grasses and plants, do not conform to local bylaws at considered an eyesore. You have to have that Lush well-kept lawn in front of your property.
Supply would go a long way for sure, pretty much agree with the points made here. Cost vs salary growth is a huge issue noone seems to have an easy answer for though - Australia's economy is overly dependent on real estate right now, and the idea of housing as investment has taken away the right to housing for younger people.
Having lived in apartments for 8 years in Sydney and moved to Adelaide this year to a rental house there is something to be said for living in a detached dwelling for mental health that I am unsure apartments can provide. Access to a well lit garden space, acoustic/visual privacy, sense of ownership/pride and a more visually present community have been refreshing for me.
I agree with counterpoint that it's not scalable in growing cities to keep sprawling, but population decline might challenge the idea of growth down the line depending on Australia's immigration levels - hard to imagine what things might be like in 10-20 years. Architecture/planning will have many new challenges to solve!
Great episode, guys! I´m always happy when I get the notification of a new one lol
Affordable housing, and solving housing problems deserves a debate way larger than a CZcams video, but yes, I see (and agree) your point.
There´s no need to reinvent the wheel all the time, learning from precedents, understanding the meaning of history and travelling to learn and fully understand other cultures is mandatory.
Jan Gehl´s ideas and 15 minutes cities are not concepts that were made up overnight. It´s amazing to see famous buildings but is also important to learn and understand everyday life.
"Be the custodian of good ideas" I loved that!
I recently went through an area that looked like this near the Victoria St/Burnley St intersection when taking a detour on the Main Yarra Trail. Unfortunately, checking on google maps reveals that it is only three buildings like this on one side of the road and on the other side is a massive parking complex :(
I hope you both keep making quality content like this. thank you for all the hard work
Being from Buenos Aires, a city with an urban fabric similar to Madrid and Barcelona, it's interesting to see your take on aspects I've always taken for granted! I must admit living in a hectic city like mine usually makes me wish I lived in a suburban setting, surrounded by more nature. But it's true that it comes at the hidden cost of being more disconnected from society and generates huge traffic problems. Mid-density policies + good design should be the means to finding a middle ground and having the best of both worlds.
We are not saying entire cities should be the same, but when density is approved, they are currently not doing it properly
Great video. Thanks so much. I've stayed in Barcelona and Madrid, both times in older urban neighbourhoods. You guys are dangerously/refreshingly sane. Keep pushing. P.S., architects I admire: Lacaton & Vassal.
Everyone here should share this vid with their non design friends. Spread the word and change policies
So good 🙌
And yes we need architects!
Nice sentiment but not sure of the analysis. Ever lived in an apartment like this in a city like this? My experience was that there was no less crime, but perhaps less violent crime. Also one of the things I appreciate most about Australian cities is the sense of space and sky. Instead of a narrow slice of an opposing building I have a view of the sky from nearly every room in the house on my small block. Personal space feels like personal well being.
beautiful, interesting video guys
Extend this to show the communal Greenspace you see in these European environments
The parks of Paris, the spaces of Lisbon with that grand boulevard
It's never made sense to me why politics ignores experts while it's obvious that outcomes are deteriorating. Architects and planners are trained to understand the urban environment and the big picture - try something radical, listen and act.
Driving through suburban America always irks me with the waste of space, efficiency, and all the isolation it all seems to be; all for the sake of having our own individual yards and large spaces that we rarely use at all for the amount of people per home. Hard to say that about housing in Europe. Any country that pushes suburbia as the main housing layout needs to get its shit together. #itsnotthathard
In order to solve the housing 'crisis', we need to look at the cause of the problem. Usually, the cause is poor housing and zoning policy and poor urban planning. But solving the problem requires political will since it affects property and business owners. Therefore, housing is a political problem, and the people need to vote for the politicians with political will to fix this political problem. So, it all comes back to the people - the citizens - and they need to be aware and be educated about the cause of the problems.
Agree
Its kind of insane that Australia has coppied the US even though they are on the other side of the planet, i would like to know how that happened.
I agree. Alain de Boton is awesome. I am American and I think we are self inducing horrible housing.
Fantastic to see you both on such a brilliant subject that is simple to solve and impossible to accomplish as powers continue to put profit before people. I live in a country town and I can walk kms and never meet another human, there is such a disconnect everywhere. I loved inner city Melbourne especially Flinders Lane and a little balcony that reminded me Paris.
Woah, I was just relooking at Austin Maynard's Terrace House and understanding what ethical housing is for my Epsilon final project. This came at the right time. Thank you both for the great content as always!
I think the problem in many places isn't so much NIMBYsm but administrative apathy/inertia. It's just easier for bureaucrats to NOT spend any effort to learn, change something, and convince people of the change.
It's actually insane that so many people and planning authorities don't get how simple so many of the solutions are when we've already learned about all the issues of car cities and bad zoning back in the 1960s, and we've had the solutions for decades. People just love to ignore all the lessons of history for some incomprehensible reason.
Sadly even when you fly bureaucrats to good livable compact cities, and show them everything, and they agree its nice and so on, they just completely forget about it by the time they step out the return flight. Believe you me, I've seen it firsthand... I think public pressure is the way, until actually decent people get pushed into policymaking positions...
You get it. Hence this video
developers also deserve some of the blame, with the use of flimsy, cheap materials and all the aesthetic considerations just external tack-ons, not proportion, light, good materials ... the stone and brick work of old cities and the height of the ceilings insulates a lot of noise from one's neighbours.
Its really disappointing to see how we missed our chance with the Docklands in Melbourne. We had all of these principles at our disposal, just ready to be rolled out. We could have had a vibrant waterfront suburb with intriguing zig-zaggy streets and a real community feel. But instead we got a mishmash of Ziggy Stardust-like buildings housing government departments, back-office bank admin, and a whole load of AirBnB apartments. Such a wasted opportunity.
Totally agree.
“You know what the deekheads teach us? Tolerance.”
i fucking HATE those “zoning code setback buildings”
except for the one you guys did that was cool i guess
The issues I have seen in Los Angeles, United States, is that every landlord I have had to deal with...are incredibly cheap. It takes 6 months for anything repairs to be made, and you have to constantly call and email to make things happen. Every apartment is just an ugly stucco nightmare, and the interior rooms just have this cheap white paint dumped over all the walls, cabinets, and outlets. There is no empathy for buildings unless you are a rich developer in Beverly Hills. Culver City is actually showing VERY GOOD progress for how a walkable city can become.
What people from the US or Australia might not get is, that European cities where developed before the train got invented. The most of the US cities got developed after the car got invented. The single family home is the biggest planning disaster the USA still has to face in the near future when resources will get more scars. The 5-6 story houses you see in Europe where build around 100 years ago and they got improved over time a lot. This kind of housing with no lift is probably the cheapest housing you can built but that would not be possible in the US where builders want to make huge profits and everything is caught up in racist zoning laws and all kinds of other restrictions. Rant over 😁
Are you exoticizing European architecture and planning? What do you think of architecture and planning in other dense places, e.g., Tokyo or Delhi? Do you really think, for example, that everyone should live in cities like this and not in regional or sparsely-populated areas?
Why is no one talking about what a sexy hat that is?
Hey guys, love your channel and feeling very jealous of where you are. Just to inject another perspective. Many of those apartments in Madrid and Barcelona are short term let's. Having been on the very real end of facing homelessness and someone passionate about architecture, I can tell you that there are more than enough houses, the main contibutor is short term let/Airbnb. I'm in NZ and it's shocking how many houses are swallowed into that market. I love those apartments but I can guarantee they too will be swallowed into that black hole. What's more important, holidays or homes?
Agree. Holiday letting is a huge obstruction to housing access.
Oh if only you guys had a say in how our cities were planned….bring it on
Great architectural ideas and planning policies, unfulfilled by stubborn residents
I don’t agree that it’s not hard. I agree with the values and the form, but for places like Aust and the US, you’re talking about cultural and social change for that form to become the prevailing form. The underpinning values differ, attitudes to privacy, community, personal freedom, work, personal space, the role of govt, etc etc, and those differences have been generations in the making. It’s not just a matter of deciding this is better lets transform our existing places. It’s easy to be flippant and say just be more tolerant, but the reality is that what communities choose tolerate are symptoms of underlying values that are very difficult to change. Also, it’s not just a matter of densify and it’ll improve our current places. There are things we have now that we would have to compromise and transform. Things that matter to people and that will take time and effort to change. It’s not easy. An example - what’s an acceptable rate of access to active recreation? Do we want to make sure that as we densify we don’t reduce current levels of access to AFL/cricket ovals/golf courses (the large spaces we currently value in our sporting culture)? Or do we accept that access to such large formal active recreation will be reduced and recreation patterns will have to change? That’s not an easy thing either way. Layer on top the people who question whether we should be so open to growth at all, combined with nimby’s who accept the need for growth, but just want it happen somewhere else, on top of the fact that it’s hard for many people to imagine the future places they’re choosing from - not enough people get to travel widely and even those that do aren’t necessarily thinking about urban form and quality of living. I’m sorry, it is hard. Lots of people will need to work hard on bringing about change. I know it’s not the intention, but throwing around a simple hash tag suggesting it’s actually easy feels like it’s diminishing the hard work required transforming places for the better. It’s already a thankless and demoralising task to bring about change in govt bureaucracies and local communities, I’m not sure #itsnotthathard is all that true or helpful, I’d prefer #fightthegoodfight - be engaged, show up to meetings, make submissions to draft plans and strategies - don’t wait till it’s your neighbour’s DA. As for you two, keep teaching and sharing your knowledge showing and spruiking and achieving what’s possible, and eventually it will be easy.
I'm just here to help the algorithm 😉
Excellent.
See Milgram, S., & Hollander, P. Murder they heard. Nation, 1964, 198, 602-604. Also' I think it's the developers that are the problem.
Madrid has had no population growth over the last 50 years, making it so much easier to provide housing. Australia’s population growth has been around 2 to 3 greater than Spain’s. The fact is a blend of housing will always exist in Australia due to the fact it’s a younger country.
The other key difference is that Madrid is not a global economic powerhouse city. Sydney and Melbourne compete with Singapore as global economic cities within the Asia-Pacific region; thus, population growth will be an issue.
How does this respond to the Better Apartment Design Standards? Access to light, Balconies, cross ventilation? This is a common problem in older apartment styles. Is this a sacrifice of your proposed response?
They are not mutually exclusive
10:18 ... great principle ... but before we are architects/designers ... we are people first
we should ALL be *"custodians of great learned ideas"* ...
"wasted" is what i call having knowledge/experience, but then not using it ...
we as ordinary citizens should demand that the very people who legislate infrastructure as a society should bloody well care about us ....
our quality of lives as ordinary citizens ... nothing special there ... we all want to live a "good" life
ofc my classic 1977 "pattern language - by christopher alexander" is a book borne out of study of global communities
comparing life-enhancing ones (old cities) with life-sucking ones (modern cities)
and recognising that there are these "templates" / patterns to life-enhancing built environments
since we the have "recipe" ... we know how to do it
am wondering if the key is more like
how do we make those in power positions be more like "custodians" instead of "power mungers"
lets start with co-op housing as a model ... should be more implemented
this channel has featured a few (great ones) before ! ! !
the *developers are the custodians!* ...
they bloody live there and have to pay for it
so ofc it makes sense to make things economically ... but long-lasting & easy to maintain ... with lowest energy consumption .. duh
seems like the "economic-model" of how things work and get done, needs to be addressed first
so that the system is allowed to work - *properly* for us as custodians ... peace
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But where do I park my two cars and store all my tools. How do I play my guitars in high density living. Sorry, but I’m not a fan. I don’t mind the townhouse idea with parking at the bottom. Like we have without the car parks in inner city Melbourne but I couldn’t live in a unit for long. I have done it and hated it. I’m fact I never saw a neighbor and was alone all the time. Anyway… get we need more supply but not sure making the whole of Melbourne seven storey units is the right idea. But certain parts of it might be okay, London clearly has all styles of accommodation.
yeah well what if IM hard debate that i mean good debate good conversation
housing "is a right". How did you discover that? Was the right discovered in a chemistry experiment? Or are you a conduit for God's directives?
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_to_housing
@@Archimarathon Wikipedia came from god, who said that he is going to pay for it too
@@johnl5316 try reading the first two sentences in the link. #itsnotthathard
Not all boomers are nimbies.
Yeah. You’re right. We shouldn’t be boomer bashing, and will no longer. 💚
@@maynardarchitects its quite ok to have a go at nimby boomers with property and a sense of entitlement