Various Aspects of Housing in a Local Community - Essay Example

A Local Housing History and Contemporary Profile Introduction Housing sector was one of the most conservative sector in the development process in Britain. The conventional thinking prevailing in this sector was inclined on independent houses built in brick and mortar with huge labour involvement. Inspite of the technological progress happening all over the world and at the rapid speed at which information travels, the housing sector in United Kingdom remained insulated to all these dynamics. Every one in the community though understands the issues and problems with the conventional pattern of housing development, the much needed change still eluded the sector. The case study undertaken here illustrates various aspects of housing in a local community, the changes the sector have undergone in the recent years along with the challenges and issues experienced. 2. The case study location The housing location being discussed in this paper is located at Grovewood Hill along the Burnbrae Drive at Edinburgh. The view of the typical houses being discussed here is shown in the figure 1. Theses houses are mostly constructed of burned clay bricks, cement and mortar. This practice of housing was found to exist from atleast 100 years in this region and the sector also boasts of providing huge labour employment in the country. This is a scenario of affluent people who could afford independent dwelling units in the places or locations of their choice. But the huge number of migrant labours and working class who makes their living by working in the city find their shelter along the slums that have come up in the city outskirts. Figure 1 : Elevation of the house This volume of occupants tends to increase at an astonishing rate as the more of the "development" takes place. The housing sector too shows a skewed growth in the urban centres with the slum dwellers increasing in the city suburbs and the planned housing developments moving to the outskirts. Thus every city location symbolized a two way housing growth - a unplanned, uncontrolled slum development in the city suburbs and an organized housing development in the spaces earmarked for them. 3. Methodology The methodology adopted involved a collection of both primary and secondary information relevant to the objective of the study. The location of the study at Groovewood Hill was chosen based on the easy access and also being the location well known to the student. The primary data collection was based on the interview technique with the help of a prepared questionnaire. Also, the information already available with the student researcher have also been used in the interpretation of the data. Also, the discussions with the housing association members and the estate manager was carried out to explore the various operation constrains and main characteristics of the housing locality. The secondary information was collected from already published materials and other reports. Based of the data collected the analysis is carried out and required information is presented in the subsequent sections. 4. Findings and Discussion 4.1 Nature and type of construction Figure 2 : Perspective of the house The sample house chosen from the locality was constructed with strong reliance on the architectural masonry almost 5 years back. It was the time when sudden development initiatives have begun and the building industry was experiencing boom. This was also the time when new methods and materials were also tried. But the labour force as well as contractors were less reluctant to change and hence the advantage it promised in the initial stages was not attained. The construction process progressed more based on the skill set of the masons rather than the advances proposed by the technocrats .Most of the houses being discussed here are two storied residential unit built in country burned bricks, cement and concrete. The roof is made in reinforced cement concrete. The interiors have been designed incorporating the techniques of passive heating /cooling technologies. Thus optimizing the energy use in the operation of the residential building. The houses are characterized by use of conventional materials and design philosophy and hence have very low level of innovation in the construction process The high use of energy intensive materials like cement and steel coupled with building blocks that are less energy efficient continues was the prime drawback in the process of construction. This continues to be the major bottleneck in the present situation when the concern for the environment has been heightened with very low interventions from the housing sector. The construction of the houses also had the inputs from the modern methods of construction. In an effort to expedite the construction process and also to reduce the turnover time some small interventions were made. One such was the incorporation of prefabricated elements. Though it was introduced in this region the major impact was observed in the countries like Scotland where the acceptability rates in those places are reported to be unmatched with the similar programmes implemented elsewhere in Europe (Glendinning and Watters 1999). Though it is often said that these approaches were new, the available reports say that they have been introduced in U.K right from the period after the Second World War due to the large demand that existed in those time as part of the restoration works after a large scale demolition. A detailed list of such initiatives in the United Kingdom is available in detail in the literature (Gibbs, 2001). Further, the high amount of energy consumed by the housing sector was another important aspect in present times. The housing construction is seen as one of the most energy intensive operations in the U.K. development sector. ). With building construction sector in U.K started facing a new set of challenges, it has become inevitable to explore newer and better methods of construction. The philosophy of prefabrication started getting experimented in some favorable situations inorder to refine the past practice of making various structural components of any building offsite rather than time-consuming on-site practices. Some of the elements of this house like door and window frames, shelf slabs etc were prefabricated and fixed in place during the time of construction. 4.2 Time scale changes in housing scenario The housing construction underwent a drastic transformation during the last 50 to 100 years. Various innovative approaches that make the housing construction more efficient and attractive have been attempted. The success stories of using alternate materials and construction technologies like offsite manufacturing from the other neighborhood countries continues to be given prominence for wider dissemination of information. Selection of alternate building materials that requires lesser time of construction and also better comforts conditions have also been proposed. The construction of modular houses, which consists of assembly of small modules had promised to revolutionize the construction process of the houses significantly. Though these type of houses have found acceptance in specific places like farm houses, temporary buildings at various project sites etc , wider acceptability among the general public remains very low. The building construction sector too has started getting exposed to newer philosophies of operation. One such attempt has been the work of Koskela (1992) who proposed a new production philosophy in the construction sector. This approach has mostly been driven by the modern industrial engineering concepts of lean production, world class manufacturing, just in time (JIT), Total Quality Control, time based competition etc. The techniques of prefabrication of building units were practiced in U.K for a short period quite successfully but due to certain inherent issues the preference enjoyed by them started diminishing. These initiatives have been taken with a long term objective of achieving sustainable construction process in United Kingdom. The changes that underwent in the housing over the last 50 years was with the objective to provide quick delivery of housing units at reduced cost and enhanced quality. The broad philosophy of incorporating the modern industrial management concepts to housing is "the integration and management of supply chain organisations and activities through cooperative organisational relationships, effective business processes, and high levels of information sharing to create high-performing value systems that provide member organisations a sustainable competitive advantage" (Handfield and Nichols , 2002) The constructions process of any building unit consists of highly complex and heterogeneous set of activities that need to be undertaken within the specified set of allocated resources like time and money. The varying degree in the magnitude of the projects, besides the diverse nature of activities has resulted in the requirement of specific set of operations management. More recently, Vrijhoef and Koskela (2005) suggested the use of "modular housing, pre-engineered buildings, and off-site production" to minimize the "peculiarities". Following these concepts some of the houses in the neighbourhood have tried to introduce a "factory made house". Further, it was observed that different types of workflow issues could often impede construction progress. The most significant among the various issues that the construction process at this location has to face were similar to those that have been reported in the other situations also. Some of them are delayed delivery in the material and equipment, errors in the construction documents like blue-print, change in the orders, equipment breakdowns or similar problems affecting its smooth function, malfunctioning of important tools, poor planning and utilisation of resources utilization, unexpected labour strikes and also environmental factors (Ilozor, 2008). As a solution to this, different set of approach called "Lean construction methods" were adopted at some of the house construction, which promised to minimize or avoid such on-site problems. Rapid increase in the apartment-based housing development is another change that has been witnessed in this region. The construction process in these type of dwelling units require the use of modern techniques that offers improved flexibility (DTZ Consulting & Research, 2006). The different approaches in using these techniques are decided based on the flexibility offered by these systems and the client requirements. (Modern Methods of Construction, 2009). The manner of constructing the entire structure using off site modules which would be later assembled at the job site is another change that was proposed during this period. An example of such a method was to construct the flat panels off-site and later connect them together at the job site to form the structure. These pieces can be open panels (i.e., skeletal) or closed panels which requires additional features like lining or insulation. Some of these panels can also be fitted with windows, doors, different type of finishes, etc. Thus the construction process underwent changes both in the construction technology as well as in the type of dwelling units. These are the major changes that the housing development has witnessed over the last 50 to 100 years. 4.3 Influence of regenerative initiatives The changes or the developments discussed earlier was part of the evolution that housing sector have witnessed in its effort to eliminate the constrains experienced by it at different time period. But lack of proper quality control in the construction activities using the modern or innovative techniques resulted in homes with serious defects and also a set of highly dissatisfied house owners. The escalation in the cost and shortage of materials have forced the developers to look for alternate options. The apartment building that have come up in the neighborhood gave rise to another set of social issues to the occupants and builders started searching for a ideal housing solution. The present detached houses constructed at Edinburgh shall be considered as part of regeneration as it has incorporated various aspects of the old independent homes and the newly introduced apartment buildings. 4.4 Perceptions of reisdents The housing sector is still dominated by conservative set of practices. House is considered as a shelter, whether the occupants invest in variety of ways like physical, psychological, social or financial. While home is said to be an idea or a dynamic concept built of emotional and experiential structures. In spite of the best possible efforts to bring in a substantial changes to the housing programmes it couldn't bring in the desired effect during the specified period of time. The profile of the residents considered here is middle class, most of them being salaried group of people. The extend of experiment on the newer concepts were not acceptable to these group of people. Also, the stories of minor errors in design and construction of the buildings constructed using modern techniques have created a general notion in the minds of the people about the poor durability of the modern houses. Those houses constructed between 1980 and 1990 using prefabricated components or standardized procedures are observed to have lesser lifespan than the traditional units. Unless the views and the needs of the target groups are discussed and incorporated in the planning and design process a sustainable approach to the construction and housing cannot be achieved. It is understood that the needs of the occupants are the major factor influencing the design and could be perfected both by technical and construction solutions. As the houses considered here have been developed by a architectural firm whose interest is the business rather than a comfortable living environment the satisfaction level of the residents is observed to be very low. This led to the housing units, which did not have proper attention for a considerable period of time. Thus unless the user perceptions are rightly incorporated in the housing planning and construction the acceptability of such type of housing systems cannot be expected to be high (Gibb, 2001). 4.5 Estate manager and their role Though the individual houses are managed by the owners itself , the large scale housing schemes are managed by the societies or associations formed from the clusters of houses. The resident association have been formed consisting of all the house owners in this region. As the region consists of both detached as well as apartment type residential units separate bodies of management have been formed for the operational convenience. Each of the bodies have a working group who over sees all the activities for a particular period, which mostly is one year. The Secretary leads the group in identifying the necessary task and also undertaking their implementation or completion. Also, the government and other housing development establishments too were constantly pressing the builders for identifying and using innovative materials and better designs to address the prevailing issues and also to rely on better delivery systems (Jones and Riley, 1987). Such type of interventions could make the management process more effective as less problems need to be addressed then.. 5. Issues to be addressed The major issue that confronts the housing managers is in establishing the safety of the residents and also to respond quickly to the complaints raised by the occupants. On the safety aspects the occupants have been exposed to routine safety drills and refresher sessions on some of the precautions that need to be followed by them either in the apartments or in the detached homes. In spite of the best efforts by the estate managers, the occupants have not realized the significance of such exercises and are often reluctant to attend such type of progammes. Also, the negligence in the refilling of extinguishers and ignorance to keep adequate amount of water as storage volume against fire are also related problems faced by them. Another major issue that faces the estate managers are those related to the water utilisation and waste management. In the case of water utilisation, the minimization of water use has been the slogan in this housing association. But most of them are still to install or fix the water and energy saving gadgets and thus creating an environmental consciousness has been a major problem. On the waste management front too the extend of support the residents give in the making the entire programme successful has not been very encouraging. The waste collectors are emptied in the morning and transferring all the waste matter into the collection point need to be undertaken before the clearing time. But it's a regular sight that the some of the residents find it convenient to transfer the waste matter much later and allows the filth to remain in the container and thus spreading a bad odour around this place until it is cleared. These are the issues that bother the estate mangers from keeping the entire living environment very healthy and hygienic. 6. Conclusions and recommendations The study undertaken has clearly elucidated the dynamics of housing in a typical locality. How the housing patterns evolves and the choice variation across different time span illustrates the dynamic nature of housing. The challenges like making the community more sensitive about the future resource requirement and environment conservation is the priority programmes for future. In an effort to make the housing scenario more sustainable in this locality it is recommended to have regular programmes, involving all the members, with an objective to help the residents more sensitive about the problems and issues faced by them and the steps that need to be adopted to eliminate or mitigate them. REFERENCES Ballard, G., and Howell, G. (1998) What Kind of Production is Construction. Proceedings IGLC, [Online] Available at , [Accessed on 25 November 2009] Barlow, J. (1999) From craft production to mass customisation. Innovation requirements for the UK house building industry., Housing Studies, 14(1), 23-42. DTZ Consulting & Research. (2006), Housing, Economic Development and Productivity: Literature Review 56-64. Reading: The Department of Trade and Industry. 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Revisiting the Three Peculiarities of Production in Construction. Proceedings IGLC-13 155-163. , Sydney, Australia:. [Online] Available at [Accessed on 26 November 2009] Read More