Adequate Housing and COVID-19: Assessing the Potential for Value Creation through the Project

Caterina Quaglio, Elena Todella and Isabella M. Lami
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Caterina Quaglio: Department of Architecture and Design (DAD), Politecnico di Torino, 10125 Torino, Italy
Elena Todella: Department of Regional & Urban Studies and Planning (DIST), Politecnico di Torino, 10125 Torino, Italy
Isabella M. Lami: Department of Regional & Urban Studies and Planning (DIST), Politecnico di Torino, 10125 Torino, Italy

Sustainability, 2021, vol. 13, issue 19, 1-17

Abstract: The COVID-19 pandemic has profoundly affected the relationship between people’s behaviors and residential spaces, bringing to public and academic attention, on the one hand, the exacerbation of pre-existing problems and, on the other, the potential of spaces, such as communal gardens and apartment-block terraces, to become important resources of sociability or privacy. Overall, this raises the question of how to assess the responsiveness of the existing residential stock to needs that transcend the traditional concept of housing adequacy—e.g., the need for adaptable, open, and livable spaces. This research moves from the assumption that underused spaces in residential neighborhoods represent a crucial asset for creating new economic and social values through architectural and urban projects. Consequently, moving from an in-depth observation of a selection of public housing buildings in Turin as a paradigmatic case study, the aim is to explore the potential for the adaptive reuse of residential spaces at different scales—from the apartment to the neighborhoods—highlighting the implications for design. In doing so, the paper puts forward a methodological approach, which widens the way housing adequacy is normally assessed, by focusing on the possibility of transformation of often neglected spatial resources.

Keywords: adequate housing; COVID-19; underused spaces; adaptive reuse; value creation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

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