Built Better Apartment and Public Housing

 "Why is high-rise public housing mostly unsuccessful?"

 A highrise public housing has succeeded in some level and failed in many other levels. 

 It supplies housing accommodation for the lower income group but it is never a place that encourages communal living, good health, creative thinking, and social interaction. 

 Most of the apartment buildings have a poor ventilation system. The fenestration is small and situated on only one side of the wall and air exchange can hardly take place. 

 You can see that most of them would have a window that opens into a small and dark inner yard that is unpleasant and sometimes filled with rubbish. 

 Inside a lift car is a place where most people meet but hardly have a conversation with each other. 

 There were less to no playground for the children, and if it does have, the parents who need to work in the apartment high up on the ground could not supervise them playing on the ground level. 

 Vandalization, thief, and house break-in cases happen as there where less natural surveillance among the apartment units and the common areas like corridor renders a place that belongs to not everyone but no one’s responsibility. 

 Humans are equal but different, but for the case of most highrise public buildings, the sameness in design gives inequality to its user. 

 The one-size-fits-all idea never worked to cater to the collective culture and diversity. 

 The highrise public housing is inevitable due to political and capital reasons that most people have no control about, but it can be designed better by adopting principles such as:- 

 - fostering community 

 - good air quality with natural ventilation 

 - promotes creative thinking 

 - kids friendly 

 - good communal spaces 

 - promotes social interaction 

 - responsive to the context, the local climate, and place

Examples of a public housing scheme that is developed to promote thinking and respond to the local context. 

 I also shared how to create a natural ventilated apartment that promotes good health, social spaces, and communal living.