A space for growth: facilitating, long-term, housing, conditions, through incremental expansion and residential empowerment

Abstract

To have a stable long-term housing situation, such as a tenant owned apartment, is a financial security that makes it possible to establish connections with the local community and grow roots in the neighbourhood. This is sought-after by many in Sweden but will for most people take decades to achieve. First-time households most often begin with temporary housing situations like rental, which in Sweden usually offers few if any possibilities to customize their own living spaces, and in turn is what forces them to uproot and move away from their community to find a more appropriate housing situation when their living situation changes. The expensive housing market in Sweden is what has led to this situation, creating a barrier for the young and financially challenged to access this security. Apart from those with a privileged background, this segment of the population usually ends up moving between short period contracts or relying on government subsidies for a home. If left unchecked, it will lead down the road of increased segregation in our society. This thesis aims to address this situation by developing a concept of affordable housing for first-time households, providing the possibility to have a permanent home from which they can become rooted in their communities, despite changing living situations. It theorizes affordable housing conditions that can be achieved through self-build methods where the residents are empowered to by themselves customize and adapt their home to their needs. It will explore how the possibility of long-term residence can be facilitated through incrementally expanded living spaces over a long time frame. A theoretical framework is developed initially through a Research for Designapproach of primarily literature and relevant case studies on incremental and social housing examples, which is evaluated on feasibility in a Swedish context. Solutions for low-cost design is gathered along with information on potential subsidies and grants in Sweden to aid in developing the design strategies of the concept. This is then applied on a plot in Gothenburg that have a need for long-term residence-solutions in its housing stock, and through iterative sketch-phases and model making, different scenarios in residential adaptations are tested. The final goal of the thesis is to create a design proposal for an affordable and incrementally expandable building that inserts itself into the contemporary housing discourse and raise questions of what housing design can entail.