A new story for housing — a fusion of architecture and social policy — with “real solutions for real people”….
“From urban high-density housing to rural communal living, Europeans are using the principle of co-housing — in which neighbors share space and resources, depending on their needs.
“Alfafar, a suburb of Valencia, Spain, is suffering from a poor economy and high unemployment. A quarter of homes are abandoned. Here, a cafe is still open on the ground floor of an abandoned municipal building in Alfafar’s Orba neighborhood, but upper floors used to house shops. A pair of Spanish architects hopes to revitalize the high-density housing in this working-class area.
“Through their architecture startup Improvistos, García and Navarrete submitted their Orba design to U.N. Habitat, a United Nations agency holding a competition for urban mass housing. They won…. García and Navarrete came up with the idea on a study trip to rural India — watching how a poor family would enlarge their thatched hut for new children and share cooking areas with neighbors. The architects think that system can work in the West as well.
Read the full story by Lauren Frayer for NPR Cities Project….
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