Where Can One Find Housing Reform?
The reform of housing construction often requires completed pioneering buildings. We asked Jyrki Tarpio, a postdoctoral researcher in housing design, to evaluate the apartment buildings presented in the Housing Reform issue (2/2025) that originate from Housing Reform architectural competitions and the City of Helsinki’s Re-Thinking Urban Housing programme.
What Did We Learn from the Previous Building Boom?
For the past couple of years, housebuilding has been stagnant across Finland. Homes built during the boom years that preceded the downturn have come under sustained criticism for their poor quality. What should the industry do differently when construction activity picks up again? We asked five architects to share their solutions.
Unique, Personalised and Urban Housing
When an architect or client sets out to build a multistorey residential building for their own use, the end result is often more intriguing than what is typically generated through ordinary housing production – for example, a home base for a theatrical community or a combination of a private home and an editorial office for an architectural journal.
Towards Housing Design for Shared Living
Shared living challenges the established principles of what is considered good housing design.
On the Power of Communal Living
When it comes to communal living, our differences can foster a reciprocal relationship, where no one is there to purely provide or receive support.
Concept: Conviviality – “Convivial Spaces Draw People Into Encountering One Another”
While a community is typically based on a given shared purpose or interest, social interaction in general can also be centred around the simple objective of enjoying each other’s company. This is illustrated by the concept of conviviality, says Katja Maununaho.
A Realized Social Utopia
19th-century France and the small town of Guise, about 200 kilometres north of Paris, offer inspiration for concepts of more communal living.
A Carpet’s Many Patterns
Between a detached house and an apartment building there is room for more diverse building typologies that both save space for nature and offer a detached house-like living experience.
A Human-Sized Metropolis
Tokyo can offer valuable lessons on designing on a human scale, embracing the layers of a city, and grass-roots urban development.