What distinguishes the architecture of housing and its primary expression, the apartment building? Variously termed urban, multiple and collective housing, what differentiates it from the individual house or from architecture more generally?
Housing as distinct from houses
All mass housing is forcefully tied to land and constructional economies.
Many new houses have a commissioning client, their brief tailored to bespoke requirements. While project homes sell bulk area at a cheap cost, sometimes architect-designed houses have generous budgets, allowing sectional play, complex inside/outside relationships and an array of fine materials and fitments.
By contrast, in multiple housing, future residents are unknown and more prone to churn over the building’s extended life. Clients for such housing tend to be agents, not the future occupiers: developer, speculator, builder, lender, marketeer, variously from private,…
