practically the only way to opt for affordable housing. Since its establishment, the housing subsidy policy in Chile has been implemented through a “Normative Table of Spaces and Uses” aimed at regulating the minimum dimensions of housing in terms of standard furnishings, guaranteeing essential ergonomic-functional conditions which, in practice, push the notion of minimum housing to the limit and, at the same time, reveal the budgetary restrictions inher- ent to the political-economic model and its state of development. This Normative Table, directly correlated with the size of housing and the capacity to finance it, has been reformulated three times over the last 40 years: 1984, 2005, and 2011. These updates explain the evolution of the minimum housing size, which, in line with economic development, went from 24 m² in 1984 to 55 m² today, the latter being considered the standard for a minimum dwelling intended for five people. How- ever, this size is still insufficient when compared, for example, with the minimum standard proposed by UN-Habitat, which is 60 m² for a household with the same number of occupants (12 m2 per person). Likewise, the current minimum is lower than the minimums established for five-person households in the cases analyzed: 86 m² in England, 72 m² in the Netherlands, 90 m² in Spain, between 80 and 110 m² in Switzerland, and 115 m² in China. Another aspect that characterizes the Chilean model is the design limitations derived from individual ownership as the predominant form of tenure, particularly in the case of debt-free housing. Given that the housing solution must be adapted to family configurations of indeter- minate size, a generic three-bedroom program with a capacity for five people is established as the standard. Only debt-subsidized housing allows access to “tailor-made” solutions, with one-, two- or three-bedroom options. In any of the financing modalities, the conception of the housing program follows the model of a conventional house, which implies not only complying with a minimum list of rooms and uses but also main- taining a hierarchical spatial and functional differentiation. This scheme resembles the typical design of a twentieth-century middle-class home, with spaces such as master, secondary, and tertiary bedrooms, a formal living-dining area, and an organization that integrates a kitchen and laundry room, among others. This approach, however, ignores demands that are typical of today, especially those related to family compositions and unconventional ways of use. The last aspect that characterizes housing in Chile is the rigidity in applying standards, which results in a high degree of homogenization of housing solutions and, therefore, a marked typification of design. This phenomenon is especially evident in medium and large-scale projects, where the same typology is repeated in the form of a “tablet”. This format usually consists of an apartment with an elongated floor plan and simple orientation, with the kitchen-laundry room at one end, the living-dining room in the center, and the bedrooms on the other side, connected by a corridor leading to a blind bathroom. This typology is reinforced by the lack of adaptability in the standards, which remain unchanged regardless of the number of occupants or the number of bedrooms. This becomes particularly relevant in the dwelling´s common areas, as the design cri- teria for the kitchen, dining, and living areas remain the same in all cases. WHAT WE LEARNED To understand the nature of the current tenure and governance prob- lems of housing design, it is relevant to ask: What are the challenges of affordable housing in Chile and what can be learned from other models of affordability and design standardization? Diversified Tenure Model: It is imperative to have a diversified tenure model that complements individual ownership and offers more precise and adaptive responses to the needs of different family compositions and economic capacities, both in the choice of the type of program and the size of the dwelling, whether through leasing or acquisition with debt. Although the rest of the countries studied have a diversified tenure
Many of the factors that shape housing design are external, and pre- defined by regulatory mechanisms and design standards, among other factors that regulate housing production. The issue of the mechanisms through which these external factors are established, how they are in- terpreted and implemented by architects, and how people appropriate their homes, is a complex issue that has been insufficiently analyzed both at the academic and public policy levels. Especially when trying to understand the reasons that shape the average dwelling and how they are inhabited by people, as the metrics and results used are often not consistent or sufficient to respond to the inhabitants' changing expec- tations and the household´s emerging needs. This project then sought to respond to these information gaps, to provide evidence on the existing design mechanisms to evaluate and regulate housing, which are framed in different affordability models. These mechanisms specifically integrate spatial, social, and technical reasoning, in addition to taking into account the cultural and geographical conven- tions of each location studied. In this way, the project seeks to account for different ways of defining affordable housing, which allows us to see different ways of tenure and housing design standards in perspective. To this end, an international comparison of regulatory systems was undertaken, highlighting how different housing regulatory mechanisms address design governance and specific approaches to housing produc- tion. This review included Chile, England, Spain, Switzerland, the Nether- lands, and China, whose guidelines for defining affordability in housing illustrate the diverse approaches to housing design governance today. To analyze the different models and examples of housing standardization described, a representative city was chosen from each country. In the case of England, the study was more extensive and included London, Oxford, and Southampton, while for the rest of the countries, the cities selected were Santiago, Barcelona, Zurich, Amsterdam, and Shenzhen. In each city, we looked for recent housing developments, built from 2020 onwards, selecting representative examples of typical housing in each location and the affordable housing model to which it belongs. All the selected cases respond to specific design control mechanisms, seeking to evaluate their applicability and regulatory nuances, as well as the type of user or family group that inhabits and characterizes each dwelling. In total, 37 dwellings were visited, carrying out a detailed study of the ways of life in each home. To produce new evidence, in-depth interviews with the users, detailed planimetric surveys, and 3D scans of the interior of the houses were carried out. In addition, mock-ups were built that replicated the existing furniture in the homes, and Real-Time Locating System (RTLS) technology was used to map how people use the spaces, analyzing both functional and social dynamics within the domestic environment. This was done in order to understand how in- habitants perceive and experience the use of their homes. THE CHILEAN CASE How is subsidized housing in Chile characterized and how has its design standardization been changing? In Chile, the housing market faces a significant paradox: although the Constitution promotes free markets and individual autonomy as the path to well-being, state intervention is essential to guarantee affordable housing. Such intervention is justified because the market alone has failed to ensure equitable access to housing for all sectors of the population. Since the early 1980s, the main mechanism has been a housing subsidy, initially focused on the most vulnerable groups and conceived with a strong emphasis on quantity rather than quality. Over time, this system has been refined and expanded to cover middle-in- come sectors as well, raising new questions and challenges about the quality of subsidized housing. At present, housing subsidies account for about 50% of the housing built annually in the country, 95% of which is in individual ownership. Thus, the absence of tenure alternatives makes the Chilean model a paradigmatic case, since individual ownership is
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