Well? don't you see that he's crazy?
Say seriously:
Insane! what nonsense he was talking about!
At the end of November 2016, the head of Zaha Hadid Architects Patrick Schumacher spoke at the World Architecture Festival (WAF) in Berlin; for this report, a stream of curses fell upon him: in the media and social networks he was called "the architectural Donald Trump", a "fascist" who dreamed of evicting all "ineffective" people from the center, the London office of the ZHA withstood a series of pickets, an open letter was published on behalf of the bureau, where it dissociated itself from the views of Schumacher (however, according to The Architects' Journal, the letter was just the initiative of a PR specialist ZHA, who was trying to end the "media storm"). But what was this scandalous performance really about? Patrick Schumacher, first slightly touching upon the projects of his firm's residential complexes (Spittelau Viaducts in Vienna, CityLife in Milan, d'Leedon in Singapore, Casa Atlântica in Miami), moved on to the main thing - "Housing for All" - his vision of housing policy, the causes of the crisis affordability and availability of housing and the way out of it. To summarize, the presence of the state is too strong in the industry.
We live in a time of rapid urbanization, but today's processes are significantly different from the last century: the industrial era with production on the outskirts, sprawling agglomerations, manual and mechanical labor is being replaced by a society of intellectual labor with capacities concentrating on interdisciplinary sites that synthesize research, marketing, financial sector, creative industries. In terms of space, this is a change in equidistance (free general plan, workers' settlements, “garden city”) by density: in a networked society, people need to be in close contact with each other and stay in touch 24/7. To improve their own efficiency, everyone feels the need to live closer to the place of work and the epicenter of events, which, in general, corresponds to the urban center. However, it is impossible to compact the city by lowering sky-high housing prices in the center under the existing government interventionist policy in the housing sector.
Formally, all residential construction is in the hands of private business, but in fact, entrepreneurs cannot independently make the most important decisions and bear responsibility for them. The developer does not determine what to build on a specific site (housing, bar, office, cinema), to what extent (minimum and maximum apartment areas are predetermined), how to equip (the number of bedrooms and balconies is predetermined in advance), and even, according to Schumacher, the degree the permeability of the yard - and that is prescribed by the administration of each London borough. At the same time, the voluminous and very strict code is drawn up rather vaguely: instead of studying the needs of the market, generating and implementing ideas, taking risks, entrepreneurs are looking for gaps in legislation, sitting at a gambling table with the state. The whole creative process is replaced by big bargaining with officials in an attempt to knock out more preferences for themselves.
The Elephant Park residential complex was built on the site of a huge "municipal ghetto" in Southwark County: the density doubled, although the developer and designers proposed to increase it three or even four times without compromising the desired quality of the environment and layouts. But the Southwark administration only provided for a double seal.
As a result, today's central London is a shortage of 100,000 housing units a year and very large apartments, each of which is rented by several households. There are as many of them as there are bedrooms in the apartment; Simply put, the bulk of downtown housing is flatsharing.
At the same time, people are ready to both rent and buy housing with an area smaller than that established by law. For example, as part of the Pocket Living project, which creates “affordable housing” from 47-meter cells with one bedroom, seven buildings with a capacity of 20 to 50 apartments have already been erected: judging by the site, today only two complexes have vacant apartments. The company is currently working on the idea of two-bedroom “pocket” apartments: an album of ideas was developed by 19 architectural firms, including Atelier One, C. F. Møller, NORD.
Reducing the living area by 3 m2 relative to the minimum norm was due to some institutionalized trick done by the owner of the company: it seems that it was juggling with terms (studio apartment), but the important thing is not the method itself, but the fact that seven buildings are not due to, but in spite of … As the classic said, "it seems ridiculous, but people buy such housing, and it is very popular."
Housing with 15-meter private space is also popular, including access to a variety of shared areas, from living rooms and dining rooms to work areas and gyms: TheCollective startup rents apartments in six completed buildings and prepares for the construction of a 112-meter residential skyscraper in Stratford.
Both of these developers found their niche in the market, found out what exactly was missing in a certain category of people and provided new (and different) types of housing. Both of these developers are in a kind of "half-blind", "half-blind" - zone of legislation. Moreover, TheCollective even slightly oversteps the line: in the UK, more than seven people who are not related are not allowed to live in one residential unit, and the residents of the project share all spaces (except for personal 15 meters) with dozens of other people who are definitely not relatives. …
Due to its clumsy state institution, the regulator cannot meet the needs of modern society, the idea of effective city management in the “top-bottom” regime has finally and hopelessly gone bankrupt. “Housing for all,” and not for the “pleasant” and “good” middle class, can only be provided in a free, self-regulating market.
The starting point for the development of the city should be the freedom of the entrepreneur, and not the rules of land use or housing codes. As a second layer, certain restrictions should be imposed on these solutions, for example, requirements for the preservation of historical heritage, environmental protection, natural light.
At the end of his “Urban Manifesto,” Schumacher raises polemical questions about the privatization of public spaces, parks and squares: “How often do you actually visit Hyde Park? We need to know how much it costs us. " It was this attempt at reasoning at the extreme points that provoked a flood of poorly reasoned criticism in the media and insults on social networks. An elementary way to end any dispute: just call the interlocutor "fascist". But this recipe does not work if the task is to understand the problem. “In order to give the truth a chance, we must establish rules of the game in which we view each other as honest and selfless seekers of truth, and this status quo must be maintained even if opponents reject common truths that seem unshakable to us. Of course, this requires nerves of steel and suppression of the anger that rolls up at times."
For the first time, a "star" architect publicly presents his view of the social order, shares his ethical principles and calls for a deep, balanced discussion.
"What else could you add to your manifesto?" - the last question at the WAF to Schumacher from the audience. “I would like to summarize all this. I only talked about construction. But I would like to extend these theses to all spheres of the life of society”.
Audio recording of Patrick Schumacher's performance at the World Festival of Architecture can be listened to here.
