east european housing
Urban Green Space in Transition: Historical parks and Soviet heritage in Arkhangelsk, Russia
Urban green space was largely underestimated as a potential for healthy and liveable environments in the state socialist countries. In Soviet Russia, green in the city was part of urban planning but more as a proclamation and mostly implemented in a top-down-manner. During postsocialist transformation, economic restructuring dwarfed the debate on urban nature and greening. Within last years, we see a change here: Urban nature for residential quality and well-being has become more relevant for people, their perceptions and daily practices. The paper analyses the development and main characteristics of urban green spaces in Arkhangelsk, Russia. It discusses the importance of urban nature for human well-being, housing and its contribution to social cohesion and local identity. The paper argues that urban greening is not only a planning tool to create liveable and healthy urban environments but also an important strategy in awareness raising and public involvement activities.
The Apartment with the Best Floor Plan Layout: Architects versus Non-architects
This study examined differences in the floor-plan preferences of architects and laypersons with no architectural education or experience (non-architects). Qualitative data on floor-plan preferences were collected using interviews and an online survey. The floor plans used in the online survey were differentiated primarily by spatial arrangements and included the original layout of a socialist prefab apartment and two contemporary redesigns of the space. The results showed significant differences in the floor-plan preferences of architects and non-architects. Topological properties of layout and a required level of privacy were identified as key factors influencing the between-group differences. Architects and non-architects disagreed in particular over how the public and private zones were defined and arranged in the apartment layouts. From the perspective of architectural practice, understanding non-architects’ preferences can decrease the uncertainty in new product development for an unknown end user and increase residential satisfaction.
The Role of Housing Assets in Shaping the New Welfare Regime in Transition Countries: The Case of Hungary
This paper looks at housing strategy in a wider social and economic context and argues that a household’s (class) position in society depends on important life decisions, one of the most important of which is a person’s employment strategy and preparation for the period of retirement (pensions), which is related to housing decisions. The main context of these decisions is the welfare regime, but also a country’s economic structure (varieties of capitalism) and housing system (tax and subsidy elements of programmes). However, as the paper argues, these systems are also changing in relation to the macro effect of individual decisions.
State - Market - Family Triangle Revisited: Visualizing and Expanding a Housing Studies Theoretical Tool
This short paper revisits and revises the over-used State-Market-Household triangle as a theoretical analytical tool, proposing its repositioning at the centre of Housing and Welfare Studies, and reopening the debate. It is shown that this tool does not remain useful for researchers alone but also as a means to a more effective communication of results to a wider non-specialist audience. Towards this goal two conceptual adaptations are proposed. Firstly, the addition of the time parameter in assessing the triangle’s transformations from one era to another, or comparing systems with similarities but on different evolutionary phases. Secondly, the – by default – understanding of the triangle as a dynamic configuration, due to inter and intra-polar shifts.
