Academic Social Responsibility: “Urban Revitalization of Mass Housing” international think-local learn-global development competition– Mohamed El SioufiMohamed El SioufiHuman Settlements, Housing and Slum Upgrading Expert Previously, Coordinator, Housing and Slum Upgrading Branch, UN-Habitat);Chairperson, Urban Revitalization of Mass Housing international competitionmelsioufi@gmail.com

AbstractOver 97 teams from 66 cities at 55 universities from 35 countries have participated, with innovative concepts, in the “Urban Revitalization of Mass Housing” international concept-crowdsourcing competition. This paperless contest was designed to create partnerships in developing proposals to address issues regarding mass/public/social housing around the globe. Several innovations were introduced including “Academic SocialResponsibility”, concept and policy database sharing, participatory handson advocacy, as well as redefining the role of academia to support their host cities and communities with development related proposals.See http://www.masshousingcompetition.org

Innovations the competition achieved include:

Academic Social Responsibility: Academia advises communities ondevelopment issues.

Participatory Advocacy: 35 countries, 64 cities and 55 universitiesapplied the results-based, gender-responsive, rights-based principlesthe Global Housing Strategy in their proposals.

Data Gathering: Over 250 housing policies were crowd-sourced from the35 countries.

Furthering academic thinking: International concept competitions bringintellectual debate on development issues to the forefront of academicresearch and thinking.

Concept Sourcing: Over 150 concepts were harvested regarding thecompetition criteria.

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Development Partnerships: Stimulating partnerships to address localdevelopment issues.

Regional and international exchanges: Stimulating learning amongstpeers globally.

Introduction

Background

A very high demand for housing occurred post World War II due to rapidpopulation growth, increased urbanization, and the need to rebuild destroyedhousing in many countries. Mass, public or social housing Mass was thepreferred option up to the 1970s. This was usually spearheaded at a nationallevel, is a publicly funded and administered housing development for low- andmiddle-income families. Mass housing has been produced in many configurationsmore often in the form multi-storey walk-ups or high-rise apartment blocks,mostly typically located in the periphery of cities. In rare cases, publichousing is integrated within the city’s urban texture.

Mass housing challenges

The majority of mass housing built in the post World War II era faces ahistoric milestone: the building stock is aging and in need of repair due toneglect and limited resources. It was usually produced based on modernplanning with strict zoning regulations, segregating urban uses resulting inlong commutes to reach urban amenities. To reduce costs and for rapidproduction, mass-housing was often built with prefabricated, inflexible,poorly-insulated construction techniques that do not respond to the changingneeds of the end user, residents.

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Challenges facing older stock of mass housing typically include neglected,underutilized and unsafe open public spaces; poor management and maintenanceresulting in dilapidation of the housing stock; sometimes attraction ofisolated ethnic groups resulting in social segregation (ghettoization);attraction of gangs and crime tend to cause safety issues for vulnerablemembers of these areas, mainly women, youth and children, leading to a lack ofcommunity spirit and vibrancy.

Unfortunately, in recent times, with the rapid expansion of cities, newlydeveloped mass housing is being located farther away from urban centres andamenities, 70 kilometres in some cases. This has resulted in increased costsof services and unfeasible 3-4 hour daily commutes. As a result people do notmove into these new mass housing areas resulting in vacant developments, knownas “Ghost towns”.

Need for action

Overall, the majority of mass housing today does not conform to the norms ofsustainable urbanism. Given the magnitude of the challenges outlined above andthe perpetuation of these shortcomings today, these inefficiencies musturgently be addressed. Lessons learned from existing mass housing through postoccupancy evaluation should contribute to guiding improved policy developmentand assist decision makers in how to better address housing needs moresustainably. To stimulate thinking and debate regarding mass housing issues,the United Nations Human Settlements Programme (UN-Habitat) organized thisinternational competition for students and recent graduates.

Competition background

The Global Housing Strategy1 (GHS) of UN-Habitat launched its firstdevelopment-oriented concept-sourcing international competition “URBANREVITALIZATION OF MASS HOUSING” to advocate for its campaign of “PlacingHousing at the Centre”. The GHS advocates the development of housingstrategies based on results-based, gender-responsive, rights-based principles.This competition, advocating for these principles, was organized inpartnership with the International Union of Architects, the Municipality ofMedellin, ISVIMED, MISTRA Urban Futures, I’m a City Changer, Slum DwellersInternational, Habitat for Humanity and sponsored by Sida and Mojang,Minecraft.

1 For more information, on the Global Housing Strategy, please refer to the framework document on: http://www.unhabitat.org/downloads/docs/11991_1_594827.pdf

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This competition aims at sourcing concepts of how to best transform existing mass housing areas to be more socially, culturally, economically and environmentally sustainable urban areas. Furthermore it explores the potentialfor affordability through innovations in funding, using cross-subsidies, improved management and maintenance practices. This also seeks to strengthen ties between academia, local and central authorities, professionals, the private sector and mass housing residents themselves.

From the 1st of September 2013 till mid-January 2014, teams of university students and recent graduates were invited to innovate and compete within six regional groupings globally. Winners were announced during the World Urban Forum in April 2014 in Medellin, Colombia. Schools of architecture, urban planning and other institutions were encouraged to include the competition in their course work.

Ministries of housing, local authorities and associations of mass housing residents, were invited to support competitors to enhance development aspects and to ensure, realistic, relevant concepts were produced. As part of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), the private sector was invited to sponsor local prizes contributing towards the implementation of the winning innovative concepts in their respective cities.

Through ‘concept-sourcing’, a form of crowd sourcing, this paperless competition2 encouraged regional and international exchanges of existing good practices as well as encouraging the development of innovative concepts for project and policy implications. The proposals developed by competitors address challenges facing existing mass housing estates today and serve as guidelines when developing new residential solutions.

Vision, Purpose, Scope and Criteria

Vision and purpose

The vision of this development oriented competition is to comprehend andanalyse challenges while learning lessons from mass housing experiencesaiming: (1) to develop proposals to address the challenges facing the selectedexisting built contexts by providing local and national solutions; and (2) todistil key concepts to contribute to a menu of concepts and policy inputs tohelp guide policy-makers and practitioners on how to improve existing masshousing while addressing new demand – learning from each other regionally and

2 All submissions were done electronically and jury evaluations 4

globally. The competition introduced several procedural innovations, discussedbellow.

Scope

To achieve the above vision, the competition comprises three components (a)learning lessons; (b) developing proposals; and (c) distilling concepts andpolicy implications.

(A) Learning urban lessons from mass housing:

Competing teams were to analyse their national and city contexts includingpolicies, strategies, programmes and best practices. Together with keystakeholders, particularly ministries of housing or local authorities,competitors selected a typical mass-housing locality in their own city.Participants further analysed the locality vis-à-vis location, mobility,socio-economic conditions etc. Utilizing SWOT analysis (Strengths, Weaknesses,Opportunities and Threats), or other tools, challenges and opportunities weresummarized to guide development of site-specific proposals.

(B) Mass housing urban revitalization proposals:

As per the design criteria elaborated below, urban revitalization proposalswere to include proposed changes to: land use, open spaces, facilities,densification (or de-densification if needed), infill, mobility andinfrastructure; community-related aspects; processes, participation and othersoft features. “Before and after” comparisons were encouraged.

(C) Concepts and policy implications

Finally competitors were requested to distil concepts from proposals tofacilitate transferability to other contexts nationally, regionally andglobally. These were to address urban planning, social, economic,environmental, and partnership criteria for sustainability. The competitionorganizers were to create a database with these concepts for enhancedutilization.

Design criteria

Competitors were guided to elaborate proposals for their selected mass housingarea. By addressing existing deficiencies through achieving the relevantdesign criteria aimed at producing better built environments with the threecomponents of social, economic and environmental sustainability at the core ofimproved urban design concepts within a partnership framework:

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Urban Design: to improve the quality and utilization of public space, improve mobility by introducing mixed urban uses; and promote social interaction, cultural viability and vibrant street life.

Economic stimulation: to introduce income generating economic opportunities, urban agriculture, and identify high-value areas based onlocation for investment purposes.

Social integration: to address social mobility through improved tenure security, introduce rights-based concepts with win-win solutions, and ensure that the proposals are gender responsive.

Environmental improvement: to achieve neighbourhood environmental sustainability; improve microclimate through productive agriculture; andpromote climatically suitable design.

Governance and partnerships: to introduce academic social responsibilityand partnerships between academia, central/local government, private sector, civil society and professionals.

A process not an output

Academic social responsibility

Academic Social Responsibility (ASR) as a new concept was introduced toaddress local development challenges. Students would contribute a semester ormore of their academic education serving their communities by engaging inaddressing urban development issues plaguing local and central authoritieswithin their field of education. One of the competition’s innovations was toredefine academia’s role to become an advisory arm of their cities’ localgovernments and communities by including the competition in their curriculum.This meant becoming active development partners, joining hands with other keystakeholders to serve the cities hosting them. Students are rewarded inacademic credits and practical work experience while the communities receiveinnovative proposals free of charge: a win-win situation. Furthermore,Professional Social Responsibility (PSR) and Corporate Social Responsibility(CSR) are encouraged though these partnerships.

Process and partnerships

The students and their supervisors were urged to contact key actors involvedin mass housing including central and local government, owners of housingestates, NGOs, community groups, the private sector and professionals. Onceon-board, they were invited to support the students in site selection; issues/challenges identification; reviewing proposals; and becoming part of thejuries. This partnership process ensured a broader engagement andunderstanding of issues while learning from the process to potentiallyimplement proposals or improve on future housing development. This constituted

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a hands-on awareness campaign involving key stakeholders aiming for improvedhousing design and implementation.

Advisory Board and Juries

Competition Advisory Board

An International Advisory Board representing local and central governmentinstitutions, academia, civil society, professionals as well as the privatesector provided inputs regarding the competition.

The juries

The competition organized three levels of jury: national, regional andinternational. Jury members kindly volunteered their expertise and time. Thejuries evaluated electronic copies of the plates and reports keeping thecompetition paperless and with a zero footprint. For well-rounded evaluations,juries included representatives of housing institutions, academia,professional associations, civil society, private sector and developmentpartners.

National and regional juries were composed of persons that supported thecompeting teams. They were thus familiar with the competition’s criteriamaking them effective jury members. Three top ranking competitors wereselected for each country and each of the six regions.

The international jury was constituted of the advisory board that were notinvolved in supporting teams or the other juries. This jury ranked the topthree winners globally selected from amongst the first ranking winners of eachregion.

Selection process and evaluation criteria

In ranking the winners, juries evaluated entries based on the five maincriteria, listed above, and their sub criteria as per the competitionguidelines to contestants. In addition they evaluated the quality ofproposals; contextual considerations; innovations of sustainability concepts;endogenous solutions for fund generation; clarity of presentation of ideas andconcepts as well as policy implications.

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Results of the competition

Country level

Given that the sites were selected in the cities in which the universities andcompetitors are located, the proposals would be of direct relevance to theirlocal and national contexts. Therefore, the ranking of the first three winnerswould provide contextualized solutions that, it is hoped, would be implementedby the concerned authorities in partnership with the private sector and otherkey actors involved in the process. All the entries including the winners havebeen placed on the competition website for open source review

Regional and global results:

The three global winners were from Spain, Morocco/Sweden and Bangladesh:

FirstRepresenting Europe and other OECD states: the Improvistos team from the Universidad Politécnica deMadrid, Spain. Their entry demonstrated a comprehensive holistic approach to addressing mass housing in Valencia. Their intervention included excellent ideas for Improving public space; promoting cultural viability; introducing economic activities based on timber produced in the hinterland of the site through agricultural interventions; identifying high value areas based onlocation; introducing neighbourhood environmental sustainability; improving microclimate; CSR; and introducing ASR.

SecondRepresenting the Arab Sates: the Casablanca team; Morocco. A joint venture between Blekinge Institute of Technology Swedenin collaboration with ENA Rabat MoroccoTheir intervention included excellent ideas regarding improving public space; introducing economic activities and agricultural interventions; identifying high value areas based on location; gender responsiveness; neighborhood environmental sustainability; improvements to the microclimate through vegetation, urban agriculture and urban furniture as well as introducing ASR.

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ThirdRepresenting Asia and the Pacific: the Shining Starsteam from the Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (BUET). Their intervention included improvement of public space and mobility; a strong focus on the introduction of economic activities particularly through agricultural and animal rearingpractices; addressing social mobility via improved tenure security; neighborhood environmental sustainability; improvement of microclimate through vegetation, urban agriculture and urban furniture, initiating contact with central and local government, private sector, civil society, professionals & academia; and the introduction of ASR.

Winners from the other three regions included: Africa, Loconsult Group,University of Nairobi, Kenya; Countries in Transition, Memo team, Faculty ofArchitecture, University of Belgrade, Serbia; and Latin America and theCaribbean, Chico Mendes team, Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina,Florianópolis Brazil.

Library of concepts

Given the universal similarities of mass housing typologies and forms, sometimes rubberstamped in various countries without much modification or contextualization, similar problems are nearly everywhere. Given the diversityof social, economic, cultural and climatic contexts transferability of ideas should be done cautiously. The organizers of the competition requested the jury members to evaluate each entry against the 15 sub-criteria of the competition. This therefore allowed the identification of the best proposals under each sub-criterion even though some of the entries might not be ranked

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amongst the winners for their overall proposals. As a result, it has been possible to organize the innovative ideas under each sub criterion and to create a library of concepts making it possible to benefit from all innovations in the competition. Under each sub-criterion between six and 12 concepts have been harvested. This menu of solutions constitutes a useful resource for policy and decision makers as well as planners and designers of mass housing. These serve both for retrofitting existing mass housing complexes as well as in guiding the design of new ones.

Prizes

The Swedish International Development Agency, Sida, as part of their supportto the Global Housing Strategy, sponsored staff time for managing thecompetition. The Municipality of Medellin provided the first prize: aninvitation to the first winning team to join their design team to plan aproject in their city. Mojang, the creators of the popular game Minecraft,provided the remaining 5 regional winners with financial prizes.Interestingly, as we were crowd sourcing the prizes, they were not announceduntil during the award giving ceremony – and yet there was a high level ofparticipation – as per the invitation that participation was part of ASR.Certificates of participation were also given to all contestants.

Innovative outcomes of the competition

The competition aimed to achieve several innovations in the context of the United Nations as outlined in section 20 of its brief. The majority of these have been achieved. Below is a summary of these innovations.

Academic Social Responsibility: The competition introduced the conceptof academic social responsibility, which, if applied to a greater numberof university students would have a positive impact on development atthe national and local levels. To achieve this systematically, academicinstitutions, with local partners, would have to dedicate a semester ora full year of their students’ academic coursework to address realissues facing their cities and communities, aiming at improving livingconditions for the urban poor.

Participatory Advocacy: By utilizing social media, the internationalcompetition, proved to be a cost-effective advocacy tool. Over 1800individuals from 90 countries initially registered their interest in thecompetition. Finally, over 360 competitors from 35 countries, 64 citiesand 55 universities participated. Furthermore, the engagement of keystakeholders to guide the students as well as to act as jury membersengaged them all intellectually by addressing the results-based, gender-responsive, rights-based principles promoted by the Global HousingStrategy within their own contexts.

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Data Gathering: Over 250 national and local policy, strategy andprogramme documents regarding urban planning, housing and slum upgradingwere crowd-sourced from the 35 competing countries. An invaluableresource for the Global Housing Strategy Database of Documents.

Furthering academic thinking: International concept competitions likethis one would also contribute to academic thinking by bringing burningissues into the lab and classroom while dedicating attention as well asthe exchange of concepts and solutions among institutions, learning fromeach other within each country and from global sources.

Concept Sourcing: In addition to the to the 97 entries of site specificsolutions, over 150 concepts were harvested under the variouscriteria seen as important to achieving sustainable mass housingenvironments.

Development Partnerships: Stimulating partnerships through thecompetition is hoped to start longer relationships that aim ataddressing local development issues through endogenous resources.

Regional and international exchanges: There is a lot of interest toengage in international competitions as they raise the standards ofengagement and create a high level of competition among participants,almost independent of material rewards.

References and SourcesThe Global Housing Strategy framework document in English: 

http://www.unhabitat.org/downloads/docs/11991_1_594827.pdf

Competition website: http://www.masshousingcompetition.org

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