Housing emergency and minimum requirements for reception: contribution to the strategy of resilience

Strong population pressure and massive urbanization in megacities cause constant housing problems; which have an impact on the urban contexts desired by a large segment of the population which; due to various reasons and because of precarious economic conditions; does not have access to the property market; not even the rental one; and is therefore seeking better conditions and a home. The reference is to those who do not have access to housing; including migrants; those who find themselves in sudden financial hardship and those who are already on the waiting list for public housing or not yet enrolled on it. Without the quick response of traditional urban planning; the housing crisis puts the population in precarious conditions; which result in self-managed and informal responses that; in turn; become an emergency. The city system; as well as all its subsystems; must be resilient to the changing conditions. It must face the constant stress of the sudden and chronic emergency; while preserving stability; through advance planning of housing responses that are fast and low cost and go beyond emergency solutions. Considering resilience as the sum of coordinated processes which have the consequence of increasing the adaptation of the city and its inhabitants; the study investigates what contribution architecture might make to the framework of resilience and if there are distinguishing characteristics — technological; typological; functional; procedural — for minimum and essential housing models; which; if applied on a preventive basis at the design stage; could contribute; albeit indirectly; to the overall resilience of the urban system; cooperating for quick; adaptive responses at a low cost for construction; management; maintenance and low consumption of energy and resources. Thinking of resilience as a feature present in many areas; but encoded in few; has led to structuring a complex methodology which; through the analysis of Case Studies (chosen from state-inhabitant cooperation projects for the informal settlements prevention) and through the analysis of the informal settlements typological aspects (such as the user’s practical responses to a need); has led to the definition of a user-specific needs profile. This; assuming as reference the metadesign; is followed by the specific requirements definition and the drafting of a “Framework of technical indications for essential; new and temporary housing construction”; structured into “Technical Sheets for the Design”; and aimed at being of help to all those involved in resilient design processes.