Winning Project
The #ABC Strategy - Make a Housing Career
Imagine the places you live throughout your life as a child, youth, adult and senior. Now imagine the possibility of staying in the area where you have built valuable relationships and at the same time live in a home that suits your needs.
- Step by step, you take the next step in your housing career in the neighbourhood you know!
Video introduction to The #ABC Strategy - Make a Housing Career
Housing for every stage of life
Each stage of life requires different space for different needs. In traditional housing developments, it is very often difficult to move if you want to stay in an area, and therefore people tend to live in an apartment that is too big or too small.
In Høje Gladsaxe there are few large apartments and they are often occupied by seniors and adults without children. This increase a tendency for residents to move out of the area when they start a family, as they do not find that the area meets the housing needs of a family with children. This means that Høje Gladsaxe on average has fewer families with children than the rest of Gladsaxe Municipality.
Graphic 1
Graphic 2
Graphic 3: Housing statistics
Lack of family friendly apartments causing a large group of couples with children leaving the area.
Graphic 4: Design criteria for new family-friendly housing
By adding new housing typologies to the area, the neighbourhood becomes more attractive to families with children.
Extended housing-rotation
The Housing Career strategy relates to the challenge of a bottleneck housing system, where the apartments which meet family needs are in high demand, have a long waiting list and are often occupied by single families without children. Seniors residing in the large family apartments lack the opportunity to move into something new, and contemporary with good accessibility, where they could become part of a smaller community while continuing life in the same area where they already have a social network.
To unlock the system, we propose new attractive housing options for the residents living in the larger apartments to take the next step in their Housing Career.
Graphic 5: From lack of opportunities to new housing opportunities
The illustration shows the situation today with few and insufficient housing career opportunities. By adding new homes, types of ownership, etc. new possibilities arises.
Make a housing career!
The vision is to increase interaction and coherence between different generations and to provide residents new housing career opportunities within the community.
The new intergenerational housing typologies is designed to fit the needs accross generations. The senior residents living in large family-sized apartments are offered the opportunity to extend their housing career by moving into something new, contemporary and senior-friendly with good accessibility, where they will become part of a smaller intergenerational community. In this way allowing them to stay in the area where they already live and have a social network. In time this will free up the larger apartments, thereby allow for the newly established families to stay in Høje Gladsaxe. Overall, the new housing typologies offer a wide range of new opportunities to live together in a neighbourhood for all generations.
The strategy consists of organisational initiatives to support a more flexible moving pattern based on the changing life situations of the residents. When an apartment is vacated, it is offered to the neighbour next door making it possible to create a connected apartment, where relations can unfold.
Image 1: New housing opportunities within the existing housing block
The existing apartment blocks is renewed by remodeling existing apartments and creating new connected apartments. At the same time, parts of the building is converted into new cooperative houseing association founded by the residents of the building.
Image 2: General co-living
The intergenerational house-share is designed so that residents can share resources, time and skills across generations.
Image 3: Three-generational rowhouse
In the renewal of the residential area, all design solutions have been developed to facilitate good neighbourliness. In the three-generation terraced house, different housing types are combined to ensure that spontanious meetings between generations will occur.
Graphic 6A: Double entrance apartments
Apartment typology with two seperate entrance ways. Initially, a couple with children resides the whole apartment, using the extra room with own entrance as teenage residens. As the teenager moves out, the room is rented to a single individual looking for cheap accomodation.
Graphic 6B: Connected apartments
New apartment typology with two seperate apartments of different sizes internally connected. Favoring families with children living next to grand parents or relatives, helping out in everyday life.
Graphic 6C: Generational co-living
A new multi-generational house-share, established as housing cooperative, gives residents the opportunity to live together and share time, resources and skills across generations. Each Households has fewer private square meters, but more total space in the form of shared facilities. The mutually beneficial arrangement also caters to the increased sense of loneliness, as well as the lack of affordable housing for young adults.
Graphic 6D: Three generational rowhouse
A new rowhouse typology consisting of different types of housing for the elderly, youth housing and family housing offers new opportunities for the spontaneous meeting between generations.
Graphic 7: Mixed typologies and ownership
New types of ownership are introduced, resulting in a combination of housing cooperatives, non-profit and owner-occupied housing, providing resilience and social sustainability to the community. Adding new housing to Høje Gladsaxe contributes to a positive change in the dynamics of the area and form the basis for rethinking relationships across generations. This is supported by the design of the new settlement, which provides a human scale that creates good conditions for the sociale life in the neighbourhood.
Graphic 8: Housing rotation system
A. Extended housing careers
1) Senior couple moves out of their apartment and into a multi-generational rowhouse, where their adult son and daughter-in-law return to Høje Gladsaxe and move in as their neighbours. 2) Their former family-sized apartment with 5-rooms becomes available for a young growing family to overtake - moving internaly in the block from a smaller 3-room apartment. 3) Single parent moves into the now vacant apartment coming from outside the neighbourhood.
B. Rental strategy
1) A young couple moves from a small apartment into the new settlement, next to both young and elderly neighbours. 2) Their former apartment is now rented out again according to a new rental stra-tegy in wich a familiy-member or close relative to the occupants of the next-door apartment is offered to rent the apartment. Thereby ensuring a strong local network of the two households and the opportunity to share time and resources in their everyday lives.III. Rotation and rental strategy
C. Generational co-living
1) A family moving from a small 3-room apartment into a family-sized apartment in the new intergenerational house-share. 2) Their former apartment is being converted into a connected apartment together with the apartment next door.
A holistic approach
CONNECTIONS TO THE URBAN LANDSCAPE
New initiatives focus on integrating the area to the rest of the city. A new park-connection ties the green areas together and gives access from the surrounding districts - Inviting neighbouring citizens into Høje Gladsaxe by offering access to existing institutions and public outdoor facilities along with a connected green and recreational area spanning from Vestvolden in the south to Gladsaxe Town Hall Park in the north.
Graphic 7: Mixed typologies and ownership
Parc of biodiversity
I) Biosphere of Høje Gladsaxe
II) Wild Gardens and the Forest of Trolls
III) The Forest of Sports
IV) Rewilding of Tinghøj Water Reservoir with herbs, wild flowers, bees and butterflies
V) Gyngemosen Biohabitat VI) Biosphere of Tingbjerg
Interconnecting the city
1) Renewal of the Høje Gladsaxe Centre
2) New park-connection breaking the barrier across Gladssaxevej and the parking lots
3) Høje Gladsaxe housing area
4) Connection to the City Hall and Rådhusparken
5) New pedestrian and bicycle bridge across the highway of Hillerødmotorvejen
6) Connection to Utterslev Mose and bicycle path to Copenhagen
7) Green connection along Vestvolden
8) New connections to sourrounding areas
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