Re-imagining Social Housing through Everyday Infrastructures

Project idea

What is the most important spaces of affordable housing are not its rooms but the infrastructures that connect them?
Contemporary housing continues to understand infrastructures such as water, electricity and waste as technical systems responsible for the efficient functioning of buildings. Yet these everyday systems also organize patterns of sharing, negotiation, care, maintenance, conflict and collective life. They do not simply serve buildings. They actively produce the social relationships through which housing is lived.

This project proposes a shift from viewing infrastructure as a mere service system to understanding it as a socio-technical system capable of sharing architecture itself. Rather than treating pipes, electrical networks and waste systems as concealed utilities, the project repositions them as spatial devices that can cultivate interaction, cooperation and collective responsibility.

The central design question therefore asks:
How can cooperative social housing be reimagined through the everyday socio-technical relationships produced by building infrastructures?

Project description

The project proposes a cooperative social housing model for low income communities which is organized around everyday infrastructural systems rather than conventional residential planning.

The design begins with the housing unit, where the kitchen, bathroom, toilet, and a dedicated washing balcony are organized as a single infrastructural zone. In many low income households, limited space often requires the bathroom to accommodate multiple everyday activities such as bathing, washing clothes, and cleaning utensils. The washing balcony extends these domestic practices beyond the confined interior, creating a more comfortable, naturally lit, and ventilated workspace for household activities while reducing congestion within the home.

Beyond improving everyday living, the washing balcony also reorganizes the building's service infrastructure. Water supply, drainage, and utility lines are consolidated along this edge, making them directly accessible for inspection and maintenance. Instead of confining plumbers and maintenance workers to narrow service ducts, the proposal creates a safe, dignified, and accessible workspace for those responsible for maintaining the building's infrastructure.

Three housing units are then rotated to form a residential cluster, allowing washing balconies and kitchens to overlook shared corridors. These everyday infrastructural spaces become interfaces between the home and the collective realm, encouraging informal interaction and mutual support among neighboring households.

At the larger scale, these clusters are organized around Service Courtyards that integrate rainwater harvesting, composting, kitchen gardens, and waste management systems as shared infrastructural landscapes. Rather than concealing infrastructure within the building, the proposal positions these systems as active spaces of interaction, maintenance, environmental stewardship, and collective life.

Technical information

The housing scheme is organized through modular clusters of three residential units connected by naturally ventilated common corridors and Service Courtyards. The housing unit introduces a dedicated washing balcony that consolidates water supply, drainage, and utility lines into an accessible service edge, improving maintenance while creating a dignified workspace for both residents and maintenance personnel.

The corridors are designed as more than circulation spaces. They maintain light and ventilation throughout the building while also acting as spill out spaces for congested households, allowing everyday domestic and social activities to extend beyond the unit. At the neighborhood scale, Service Courtyards integrate rainwater harvesting, composting systems, kitchen gardens, and waste management infrastructure as shared environmental systems. These green courtyards support food production, improve air quality, and create shaded communal spaces for gathering and rest.

Rainwater collected from rooftops is stored in underground tanks and reused for non potable domestic and landscape purposes, while organic household waste is processed through community composting units that support productive gardens.

By making infrastructural systems visible, accessible, and adaptable rather than concealed, the proposal demonstrates how technical systems can become sociotechnical systems that improve environmental performance, simplify maintenance, and cultivate everyday social life.

Documentation

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