MCMH-EU is organising a MCMH-EU Youtube Channel with a series of video podcasts from September 2020. This series will allow our action to remain active even in this time of health crisis, especially since we do not know when international travel will be allowed. Besides that, it is a good way to share our research and increase our COST-Action visibility beyond its members.

We are now looking for proposal with this Call for Proposals for all Action-Members. We highly encourage all Action-Members – in particular ITC and Young researchers – to submit a proposal for a video (up to 300 words) within the following thematic categories.

There will be two categories of videos podcasts:

– A short version (6-8 min)
– A long version (15-20 min)
– Lecture Series

The proposal should indicate which category applies.
We are very much looking forward to receive your proposals. Please send your proposal to the relevant WG-leader.

The maximum amount available is 500 euros (with VAT).

– MCMH History – Historical synopsis (Historical synopsis of a case study)
– MCMH Architecture / Urbanism (e.g.: Learning from Projects; Maps/planning/GIS; Typologies; Housing and Collective Spaces; Landscape Views; Covid-19 pandemic)
– MCMH Concepts / References (e.g.: Defining Middle Class; Housing and Social Class; Mass Housing)
– MCMH Public Policies (e.g.: Country portrait, Case studies)
– MCMH-EU Countries (Videos related to the different/selected countries)
– MCMH-Touring cities (Videos related to the different/selected countries)
– MCMH-Interviews (Interviews with another MCMH-EU member or any MCMH expert)
– MCMH-Open Category (You are welcome to suggest another category)

Abstracts of no more than 300 words should be submitted at eahn2024@gmail.com along with the applicant’s name, email address, professional affiliation, address, telephone number and a short curriculum vitae, all included in one single .pdf file (only one submission to one session or roundtable per author).

The file must be named as follows: session or round table number, hyphen, surname e.g. S05-Tsiambaos.pdf, RT02-Tournikiotis.pdf, etc.

Whether it constituted the physical extension of the imperialist projects, a means to discriminate or to influence indigenous way of life and to trigger processes of modernization, the House represented a “Tool of Empire” (Headrick, 1981; King, 1995). With the aim of “normalizing”, “standardizing” and “domesticating” (Teyssot, 1985) autochthonous way of life, the colonial administration undertook a process of dismantling vernacular forms of domesticity, by both condemning its architecture – its form, its materials, its fundamentals – and also its content – its domestic practices and users –.

It was especially during the first half of the 20th century and in the aftermath of the WWII, that the colonial planning offices designed and redesigned across geographies a diverse range of house types aimed to dwell the indigenous populations in a diverse range of milieu: urban neighbourhoods, rural settlements, military camps. The house types designed suggested models of house and domesticity based on the rhetoric of modernity (Heynen, 2013) which have been shaped and negotiated according to the colonial purposes.

For example, after the end of the Second World War, the house types proposals occasionally brought modernity closer to local realities. The implementation of industrial methods in solving the issue of urban housing resulted in housing typologies for the indigenous populations that showed an apparent compatibility between the modern standards and the interpretation of vernacular features.

This session will focus on the production of house types and the type of house addressed to the indigenous populations by the colonial administrations. We encourage papers that discuss how the house types for the autochthonous populations operated as an agency for the rhetoric of modernization, development and assimilation, but also that unveil processes of appropriation and resistance occurred, how dwellers transformed, resisted or accustomed to the colonial house types and type of house. Finally, the session aims to bring together multiple geographies, especially focusing on the African continent (but not only), in order to begin to discuss whether and how the house types circulated across the colonial administrations and which type of house was collectively shaped, pondering the reasons of it.

This Call for Papers and Discussion Positions can also be read at the EAHN website – https://eahn.org

More Info

In the framework of our Frankfurt meeting, we are pleased to share with you a call for participation to enable 20 members of our COST Action to take part in this last major event of the CA18137 MCMH-EU.

The call is open to all members who wish to present and share:
1. The work developed in the WG throughout the Action
2. Networking tools developed (STSM or other Grants)
3. Papers to disseminate the Action at the MCMH docomomo seminar.

To apply, please send an email to the GHM of our action Carolina Camacho stating your interest to this address: carolina_camacho@iscte-iul.pt

The deadline for applications is 31st of March.

As a reminder, this final meeting of the CA18137 MCMH-EU will take place from 26 to 30 April 2023 at the University of Applied Sciences in Frankfurt.

The selection of speakers will be based on the submission of a simple abstract with title according to the following deadlines

While the COST Action program “Middle Class Mass Housing” has been precise on the second term, Mass housing, the first term still leaves considerable room for work. The task is important because of the diversity of what the notion of middle class covers in the different CA18137 countries, according to their history, their political tradition and their inclusion in the market economy.

In this seminar, we propose to consider the population changes that have taken place in the large housing estates since their construction and the way in which they have been the subject of demographic, political, managerial, urbanistic, architectural, photographic, novelistic and poetic narratives. A multidisciplinary reflection could also look at the different narratives that are grafted onto the initial project of the neighborhoods and stratified around its constructions and its multiple images and representations.

In some cases, the initial population has remained in place: it would be interesting to see how it was designated yesterday and how it is today; to what extent the renovation or rehabilitation projects have or have not led to its redefinition. In other cases, the initial population has changed and it would then be interesting to see how this has occurred (departure through relocation or social ascension, e.g. home ownership). It would therefore be relevant to analyse how the new arrivals are identified.

Finally, we could look at the representations of these populations in renovation and rehabilitation projects and during long-term processes. By comparing the accounts of different European countries, this seminar will not propose a definition of the middle classes within the CA MCMH-EU. But it will show how this notion is linked to that of social and spatial change.

This seminar is a continuation of the COST Action 18137 MCMH-EU / CRH seminars held in Paris in 2021 (“History, memories and urban strategies”) and 2022 (“Evolution of collective spaces in Mass housing”. The papers may be published later.

This 3rd edition of the L&E Seminar is organised in collaboration between the Centre de recherche sur l’Habitat of the ENSAPVS and Politecnico di Milano.

For the CRH: Bernard HAUMONT, Yankel FIJALKOW, Ahmed BENBERNOU
For the Politecnico di Milano: Gaia CARAMELLINO, Nicole DE TOGNI

The DOCONF series provides a comparative overview of current doctoral research in architecture, landscape architecture, and urban planning, focusing on the urban challenges of the inherited physical (built and natural) environment of the post-socialist cities in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE), and post-soviet Asia. Those invited include doctoral students or post-doctoral researchers (with a PhD/DLA degree earned after the 1st of January 2017) – specializing in architecture, urban design, urban planning, landscape architecture, or other topic-related academic fields.

The DOCONF gives a chance for young researchers to find relevant international context regarding their research topic, to present and discuss at an academic conference, and to publish a final full paper (15000 – 20000 signs) in the double peer-review open access DOCONF2023 e-proceedings (see previous doconf’s publications). In addition, you could discover Budapest, the capital city of Hungary! Abstracts can build on theoretical concepts, case studies, process interpretations, and comparative analyzes among post-socialist countries or between Eastern and Western Europe. Important that the scale of your research will be urban (not just a building), and if you work with case studies, at least one of them should be located in a post-socialist city. For abstract submission, using the form (Abstract submission), give your doctoral data, and write your title and a 250-300 word-long abstract proposal related to the general topic of the DOCONF series Facing Post-Socialist Urban Heritage.

Organisers of DOCONF2023 propose four key topics based on previous years’ experience, and they will finalise the sessions of the conferences after the abstract submission.

Throughout the world, mass housing was the answer to access decent living conditions after the Second World War and is still a used answer to the housing shortage in many countries. Modern and contemporary theories and practices shaping these housing developments seem to be global, but the urban form, architectural characteristics, technical details, ownership system, space division, everyday life, etc., are varied locally. In post-socialist cities, most of the housing estates were publicly owned, centrally planned, built, and managed developments, but after the privatization process, their conditions changed, and they have a lower ability to integrate current housing requirements. Nevertheless, mass housing neighbourhoods represent highly specific areas of cities demanding conceptual and thoughtful public policy decisions regarding their complex sustainability and livability.Faced with their actual status, the housing needs, aspirations of the inhabitants, or the climate issues and the pandemic situation, what are the possible changes in this urban heritage? How do we not betray the social and egalitarian ideals which motivate the construction of these neighbourhoods? And what challenges lie ahead for the inherited mass housing neighbourhoods of the post-socialist cities?

Post-Socialist Transformation Challenges on Seasonal Landscapes: Freedom appeared on a new scale but with a different meaning in eastern and western landscapes after the Second World War. While in the West, freedom emerged in the form of the right to leisure, in the East, holidays became a means of consolidating social policy. The increasing infrastructure capacity has opened up new DOCONF 2023 / doconf.architect.bme.hu / Department of Urban Planning and Design / BME Budapest opportunities for domestic tourism and recreation for a broader range of society, while it became a showcase for socialism for international tourism. However, the building process transformed the landscapes spectacularly, the buildings were designed just to meet the functional needs of seasonal tourism, focusing on a short period of land use. Simple and lightweight, experimental buildings soon became widely popular and deeply positioned in the collective memory as landmarks. But post-socialist resorts are now being shaped by privatization and contemporary tourism concepts. Formerly modern tourist monuments today struggle with problems of heritage protection, rehabilitation, demolition, or transformation. The new forms of freedom pose new challenges to post-socialist leisure escapes. How have new tourism trends transformed landscape identities? What rehabilitation challenges and tools are emerging in the renewal of tourist facilities? In what ways is it possible to define new concepts for post-socialist leisurescapes?

As a result of the centralized industrialization plans of the socialist countries after the Second World War, completely new industrial landscapes came into being, sometimes without profound precedents. They created a new culture of industrialization and unique built environment identities of the urban fabric. Starting from the early 1990s, however, the political and economic changes in these countries began transforming these industrial urban landscapes. Despite their excellent urban location, they relatively quickly lost their economic background and started a process usually associated with decay. Their transformation has taken many different paths in recent years, but their impact on urban life is almost unquestionable. Will high-quality, productive landscapes be born at these transitory places still looking for their new identity? Can the socialist industrial heritage be the base of resilient urban dynamics and new regenerative processes? The session focuses on the treatment of urban heritage and new strategies in these territories in post-socialist cities.

Public spaces in the socialist bloc acquired new political and social functions, therefore faced a drastic transformation compared with the traditional use of the marketplaces and promenades from before the world wars. New urbanization projects made possible the construction of new types of public spaces and public buildings, giving space to large controlled parades of the socialist society but less to small-scale community socialization. After decades of severely controlled public life, inhabitants of the post-socialist cities have been suspicious towards using the public spaces and socialist public functions as their natural meeting places, but rehabilitation projects and new public functions gave life even to the most utopian and grandiose spaces, especially where community involvement was used for the redesign. In this session, we collect scholarly studies on the rehabilitation and re-use of public spaces in post-socialist cities and villages. Public buildings and external spaces can be both subjects of analysis, if their use has been measurably modified, good and bad practices can both be presented.

Geography, with its focus on the interaction between people and environments, is well placed to answer questions about our current condition, how we got here and directions for research to secure our common future. EUGEO 2023 Barcelona welcomes sessions and papers on a broad range of topics that could contribute to an understanding of our current conditions, the challenges we face, and directions necessary so that humanity and all that cohabits our planet can survive in our shared environment.

Given that EUGEO is a Congress gathering the entire Geography discpline, it is necessary to link the abstract to one of the Sessions below. Once the submitting period ends, the review will be done by each session chair.

To submit an abstract, we ask for a no more than 300 words description, as well as the information regarding the Author(s).

Organisers of DOCONF2023 propose four key topics based on previous years’ experience, and they will finalise the sessions of the conferences after the abstract submission.

Housing estates have been built all over the world, and if we look at them in Eastern and Western Europe, there are far more similarities than differences. Their origins are common, their construction was inevitable and there are no fundamental differences in the reasons for their construction. They were all built to address the housing shortage in the short term. Looking at the architectural evolution of mass housing programmes after the Second World War, we find that they replicate to some extent the post-World War I situation in that there was a gradual shift from suburban neighbourhoods to large housing estates on the periphery, and the same urban ideologies and architectural techniques were employed. In Europe, housing estates thus became widespread and in many countries they continue to constitute an important segment of the housing market. In recent decades, the issue of high-rise housing estates has often been the focus of urban geographical, architectural, and urban planning discourses, and more recently a new mainstream urban paradigm, the theory and practice of vertical cities has grown out of this issue. This session aims to bring together and present current research on mass housing, high-rise housing estates, and vertical cities, focusing in particular on social, economic, and urban issues, housing market processes, and other related topics.

Nowadays, digital technologies are incorporated into social and cultural processes to such a degree that the divide between the physical and the virtual has largely diffused. This new reality profoundly affects contemporary conceptions of landscapes, both cultural and natural, with dramatic implications for urbanscapes and their constituent architectural elements.

The continuous evolution of virtual technologies throughout the 21st century has often prevented a deep reflection on their impact on our societies. In relation to our landscapes and urbanscapes, it raises a series of questions that can be the basis for future lines of research. On the one hand, the virtualization of reality has clear benefits, such as a deeper understanding of the places we inhabit, their actual and even predictive control, or the promotion of permeability between different professionals and society at large. On the other hand, many authors have observed critical dimensions such as the excessive privatization of the virtual realm, its ephemeral nature and the acceleration it imposes on cognitive and social processes, or how the virtual sometimes leads to a gradual disregard for the physical.

This Special Issue embraces all these positions and welcomes both practical and theoretical contributions that explore the relationship between our rural and urban landscapes and the virtual. Since this topic affects a wide range of professionals, the subject can be approached from ecology, urbanism, architecture, sociology, cultural studies, heritage management and tourism studies, among other disciplines.

• Impact of Social Media, Virtual Reality and the Metaverse in the places we inhabit
• Influence of the virtual in shaping the identity, history and perception of space
• Big data and spatial research: Implications on the meshing of qualitative and quantitative research methods
• Modeling softwares: Virtual asessments and their critiques
• New spatial imaginaries: Alternatives, experiments and explorations
• Landscape and heritage management: Physical and virtual historical layers
• New methods for urban management and professional practices
• Digital twins, deep mapping, and the virtual datafication of physical spaces: uses and impact
• User Generated Content (UGC) or online surveys and the social perception of space

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Land is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2000 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI’s English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

DOCOMOMO International is pleased to announce the Call for Abstracts for a special issue of the Docomomo Journal dedicated to the investigation and comparison of Middle Class Mass Housing in Europe (MCMH-EU) since the 1950s. MCMH has been generally underestimated in urban and architectural studies and there is still a lack of comparative analysis and global perspectives. This special issue is linked to the EU-COST-Action on the same topic (https://mcmh.eu) aims to develop new scientific approaches by discussing, testing and assessing diverse case studies, their social and cultural context, interventions and public policies.

Most housing research still focusses on social and affordable housing and while the definition and identification of MCMH is still under construction (definitions). It is evident that MCMH has different forms of urban and architectural representation and various models of governance. The editors like to invite contributions from Europe and from other parts of the world that document, discuss and compare typologies (cases) of this modern heritage as a key resource for a sustainable urban and social development. Articles should display concepts and actions at social, cultural and political levels that will contribute to the formulation of new planning and intervention strategies (policies) for existing MCMH.

The call seeks to highlight research and best practices that contribute to a theoretical, scientific and methodological framework based on comparative analyses across countries and critical assessment of best practices. We are in particular interested in interdisciplinary research and projects that involve different stakeholders and levels of implementation.

– the anthropological; through the sense of identity, community, place attachment, maintenance and taking care, ownership and appropriation,
– the physical; expressed in construction, deterioration and conservation (technical, functional, social), and
– the environmental; considering the quality, and sustainability of spaces, the resource efficiency and also conditions of comfort and satisfaction.

This is an open call for academics and practitioners with interest in the subject to contribute to this special issue of the Docomomo Journal with:
– articles (documentation, technical and conservation issues, case studies),
– essays and interviews,
– heritage in danger,
– tributes and book reviews.

This Docomomo Journal is guest edited by the Action Chairs and WG Leaders of the COST-Action MCMH: Ana Vaz Milheiro, Dalit Shach-Pinsly, Els de Vos, Gaia Caramellino, Inês Lima Rodrigues, Kostas Tsiambaos, Müge Akkar Ercan, Yankel Fijalkow.

After double-blind peer review the contributions for this special issue will be selected by the guest editors in cooperation with the editorial team of the Docomomo Journal. The Docomomo Journal is Open Access and indexed by Scopus and DOAJ – Directory of Open Access Journals among others (www.docomomojournal.com) among others.

Please upload 300 words Abstract and 100 words CV to the OJS system:
https://www.docomomojournal.com/index.php/journal/about/submissions by the 30 November 2022. The launch of this special issue of Docomomo Journal is scheduled for April 2023.

Abstracts are evaluated by the Scientific Committee and selected authors will be invited to the present in the final conference. Selected papers for the Special Issue are subject to double-blind peer-review.

This publication is based upon work from COST Action Middle Class Mass Housing – EU CA18133 supported by COST (Cooperation in Science and Technology): www.cost.eu.

SUBMISSIONS

The conference is held every 5 years in honour of the anniversary of the University of Architecture, Civil Engineering and Geodesy. The main goal of the conference is to create a scientific and technical forum, presenting the latest trends, developments and issues in different scientific sections. It also aims to provide guidelines for future scientific and technical research, to improve the effectiveness of the methods and technologies, and the level of environmental protection. The topics of the conference are generally outlined according to the scientific areas covered by the university.

The special session on MCMH is set within the thematic field of Architecture and Urban planning and is focused on contemporary approaches to studying the phenomenon of 20 th century mass housing and current trends of interventions in large scale housing complexes from the period. Topics concerning urban regeneration, sustainable development and energy efficiency, participatory approaches as well as urban nature, ecosystem services and nature-based solutions will be encouraged. The session is open to all researchers and members of COST CA 18137 are warmly invited to send abstracts.

The deadline for submission of full-text papers is 31 December 2022.

The paper volume should not exceed 20 pages following the attached Manuscript
preparation instruction. The formatting instructions and a template are available at the website of the Annual of UACEG . Template
The full text papers submitted for publishing undergo the usual peer review procedure of the Annual of UACEG. The accepted papers will be published in 2023 in a special issue dedicated to the conference.

The Stakeholders Workshop (Co)Designing for Quality of Life in Middle-Class Mass Housing: Exploring Challenges & Opportunities” aims to explore the challenges and opportunities for improving quality of life and sustainability in Middle-Class Mass Housing complexes through engagement and collaboration with local stakeholders. The case-study site is Umitkent Sitesi, Umitkoy, Cayyolu, in Ankara, Turkey. This 3-day event brings together local and international urban researchers, students, and residents and will combine site visits, workshops, and presentations.

The Workshop is organized as part of a COST Action CA18137 “Middle-Class Mass Housing (MCMH), and Middle East Technical University hosts it in Ankara, Turkey. The organizing and coordination team includes Dr Müge Akkar Ercan (Middle East Technical University), Dr Juliana Martins (University College London) and Research Assistant Irem Duygu Tiryaki (Middle East Technical University).

Participants and supported expenses
The Workshop is open to 25 participants: up to 15 MCMH members (international experts) and up to 10 local Master’s/PhD students or researchers. The COST Action will reimburse the cost of travel, accommodation and meals of up to 15 MCMH members and the meals of up to 10 local participants.

Applications and deadline
Applications for participation should be e-mailed to akkar@metu.edu.tr; j.martins@ucl.ac.uk, itiryaki@metu.edu.tr by 23 August 2022, Tuesday. Selected participants will be informed by 26 August 2022, Friday.
To apply, please fill in the form at the end of this document : CA18137: WG3 MCMH STAKEHOLDERS WORKSHOP

Selection process and Grants
Up to 15 grants are available to the best candidates to fund their travel, accommodation and living expenses. Reimbursement funding which covers travel, accommodation and a daily allowance according to COST Association rules, can only be awarded by COST to CA1837 members enrolled in the Action from eligible countries.

Evaluation criteria for international researchers
Applicants will be assessed and selected by the coordinators and approved by the Core Group according to the following selection criteria:
1. Senior or young researchers with expertise in sustainable urbanism and quality of life policies from all working groups of CA18137
2. Participation of the applicant in the open tasks of the WG3
3. Post-doctorate fellows
4. Early Career Researchers
5. Researchers from ITC countries

Travel and accommodation
Successful candidates are expected to arrange their travel and accommodation. For more information about the Action, please follow the following link mcmh.eu and the Vademecum.

WORKSHOP MCMH-EU & GIS (Geographical Referencing System) is part of the EU COST Action 18137: European Middle-Class Mass Housing. It aims for the WG1 members and all CA18137 members who have teamed up in selecting the case studies interested in developed MCMH’s analysis by the GIS tasks targeting to define new formats for “Documenting the MCMH”.
The three-day-long workshop will be based on lectures, practices dealing with the MCMS selected complexes, followed by round tables & discussions, and field trips to MCMH complexes with the Axios Housing Complex as a case study.
The workshop is hosted by the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki and coordinated by Assist. Prof. Dr Athina Vitopoulou, PhD candidate Dimosthenis Sakkos, and Assist. Dr Prof. Kostas Tsiambaos under the scientific coordination of Dr Dalit Shach-Pinsly, Dr Idan Porat and Dr Inês Rodrigues.

In the workshop, MCMH-EU & GIS will participate over three days for up to 25 participants face-to-face: 15 international researchers will be assessed and selected by the scientific coordinators and approved by the Core-Group CA18137 and up to 10 local students selected by the local coordination team.

Registration is free. International participants will be reimbursed by COST rules (travel and accommodation).
For more information about our Action, please follow the following link mcmh.eu

Application process

In order to apply you are asked to complete the Application Form at the end of the document available via the following link:
Application form

Successful applicants will also be asked to prepare a poster on your PhD topic and complete an extended abstract.

MCMH-EU International researchers:
Please send your completed application form to
rodrigues.ineslima@gmail.com, dalitsp@technion.ac.il, idanpo@technion.ac.il

Thessaloniki researchers and students:
Please send your completed application form to:
dimsakth@hotmail.com, kostastsiambaos@gmail.com

Travel and accommodation
Successful candidates are expected to arrange their travel and accommodation. For more information about the Action, please follow the following link mcmh.eu and the Vademecum.

The infrastructure of the colonial territories obeyed the logic of economic exploitation territorial domain and commercial dynamics among others that left deep marks in the built landscape. The rationales applied to the decisions behind the construction of infrastructures varied according to the historical period, the political model of colonial administration and the international conjuncture.​

This congress seeks to bring to the knowledge of scientific community the dynamics of occupation of colonial territory, especially related to the war effort, and that involve not only agents related to architecture and urbanism but to the military, and its repercussions in the same territories as independent countries.​

It is hoped to address issues such as how colonial infrastructure, in this case housing production during armed conflict, has conditioned the current development models of the new countries or what options taken by colonial administrations have been abandoned or otherwise strengthened after independence.

The aim of this congress is to extend the debate on the repercussions of the decisions aken by the colonial states in the area of territorial infrastructures – in particular through the disciplines of architecture and urbanism – in post-independence development models and the formation of new countries with a colonial past.

More Information

Following the second edition of the seminar “Lieux & Enjeux” in Paris on the theme of the evolution of collective spaces in mass housing and in the framework of the dissemination program of the COST Action 18137 MCMH-EU, we are pleased to announce the launch of the new call for papers for the second part of the collective book in preparation, which will be published by L’Harmattan in the collection “Habitat et Société” under the direction of Ahmed Benbernou & Aurore Reynaud.

More Information

For almost 3 years, more than a hundred researchers from more than 30 countries in Europe and beyond have been involved in the research project led by COST Action 18137 dealing with the issue of middle-class mass housing (MCMH) built in Europe since the
1950s from a multidisciplinary perspective.

Through our different exchanges, we have been able to see the great diversity and scope of this theme within the different institutions that participate in the enrichment and construction of this project. But what we can affirm today is that, in more than half a century of mass housing production, this built heritage has been greatly transformed. These evolutions are the result of different factors. They can be social through the change of populations (ageing populations, impoverishment, gentrification, …) which implies changes of appropriation and use. They can be political and ideological, … but also simply linked to time with the ageing of buildings. All this necessarily implies the implementation of urban renewal strategies. Thus, by the diversities of the countries represented in our COST action, the idea of this collective book is to collect and gather the different experiences of the question of urban renewal related to this heritage of the modern movement and the identification of the different social processes that seek to maintain or attract the middle classes through the analysis of the architectural and urban strategies specific to each member country of our program.

More broadly, we will be able to cross-reference the narrative strategies and narrative settings that feed the projects and debates around renovation, rehabilitation and heritage, in relation with the history and the collective memories. The resulting work could ultimately serve the purpose of this COST action to develop new scientific approaches by discussing, comparing, testing and evaluating various case studies and their different methodologies and perspectives on this topic which represents one of the main aspects of the urban fabric in Europe.

More Information

© J. Balčiūnas

Training school “Post-War Mass Housing as Heritage Site” is aimed at PhD students in the field of architecture and humanities (heritage studies, history, art history, sociology, anthropology, etc.) interested in research and preservation of modernist heritage and post-war mass housing in particular. The three-day long training school will be based on lectures, site visits and discussions (readings). Lazdynai mass housing estate (1963–1969) in Vilnius is chosen as a case study.

The training school is a part of COST Action CA18137 “Middle class mass housing (MCMH)”.

Vilnius university will accept up to 12 international students. Up to 10 local students will join on site.
The certificate of 1,5 ECTS credits will be provided. COST Action will reimburse travel, accommodation and meals. Applications with your research topic (PhD title, institution, supervisor) and one paragraph description should be sent by 27 May (Friday) to marija.dremaite@if.vu.lt

Preliminary programme:

Wednesday, 8 June. 9.00-19.30. Training
Thursday, 9 June. 9.00-19.30. Training
Friday, 10 June. 9.00-19.00. Training

Selected participants will be informed by 30 May (Monday).

After World War II, Turkey and Greece followed similar paths of economic and physical development under the Truman Doctrine which set the foreign policy of the United States (US) to build the Western Bloc. Subsequently through the Marshall Plan and the Point IV Program, the US provided capital and technical expertise for housing and promoted aided/assisted self-help housing in both countries. The US supported individual or cooperative efforts in house-building and home ownership for publicizing the US manner of democracy against communist tendencies. Soon, self-help housing with or ‘without architects’ became a global norm in aided/assisted house-building as part of transnational activity by the US as well as international organizations of postwar development.

Guided by this common transnational activity, Turkey and Greece experienced strikingly similar housing practices for low-cost and rapid construction by private initiatives, which were allegedly autonomous yet actively legislated and assisted by public loans. Called yap-sat (build-sell) in Turkey and antiparochí (in exchange) in Greece, common patterns of development turned housing to a speculative industry in which small-capital or non-capital actors thrived more than big-scale real estate developers. Such activity allowing building for selling/renting, led to a distinct parcel-based ‘apartment block’ scheme which became the prevailing type of urban housing in both countries with many similarities.

Although postwar self-help housing has been of interest in architectural historiography, transnational activity informing local housing practices still needs to be brought to surface. In this session, we seek to establish the common grounds of housing aid/assistance schemes and the subsequent small-to-big scale speculative developments experienced in countries which received any kind of foreign aid/assistance during the second half of the 20th century beyond economic/political/geographical limitations. We especially invite papers discussing the role of housing aid/assistance programs and experts as well as of transnational/local legislative or other measures in promoting private housing markets next to specific building modes and architectural/urban typologies.

Session Chairs: Sıla Karataş, École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL); and Konstantina Kalfa, Athens School of Fine Arts (ASFA) & National Technical University of Athens (NTUA)

1. Abstracts must be under 300 words.
2. The title cannot exceed 65 characters, including spaces and punctuation.
3. Abstracts and titles must follow the Chicago Manual of Style.
4. Only one abstract by an author or co-author may be submitted (to either a Montréal session or a virtual session)
5. A maximum of three (3) authors per abstract will be accepted.
6. Please attach a two-page CV in PDF format.Abstracts are to be submitted online using the link below.

Abstracts should define the subject and summarize the argument to be presented in the proposed paper. The content of that paper should be the product of well-documented original research that is primarily analytical and interpretive, rather than descriptive in nature. Papers cannot have been previously published or presented in public except to a small, local audience (under 100 people). All abstracts will be held in confidence during the review and selection process, and only the Session Chair and Conference Chair will have access to them.

All Session Chairs have the prerogative to recommend changes to the abstract to ensure it addresses the session theme, and to suggest editorial revisions to a paper so it satisfies session guidelines. It is the responsibility of the Session Chairs to inform Speakers of those guidelines, as well as of the general expectations for participation in the session and the annual conference. Session Chairs reserve the right to withhold a paper from the program if the author has not complied with those guidelines.

Please Note: Each Speaker and Session Chair is expected to fund their own travel and expenses to Montréal, Canada. SAH has a limited number of conference fellowships for which Speakers and Session Chairs may apply. However, SAH’s funding is not sufficient to support the expenses of all Speakers and Session Chairs. Speakers and Session Chairs must register and establish membership in SAH for the 2023 conference by September 30, 2022 (for Montréal) and February 28, 2023 (for Virtual) and are required to pay the non-refundable conference registration fee as a show of their commitment.

The theme of this session will be dedicated to the exploration of outdoor spaces within Mass Housing, whether they are public, private or collective.

In the post-war period, modern architects, influenced by the C.I.A.M. congresses (1928-1959), were called upon to build large housing estates. Inspired by the experience of the HBM and the “Cités Jardins” of the 1920s, they marked a profound change in the relationship of architecture to the city. In terms of composition, in the name of hygiene, good orientation and ventilation, they paid almost exclusive attention to built volumes and housing to the detriment of outdoor spaces. In addition, pre-industrialization and the economy of construction led to repetition and craneways, thus developing an angular urbanism. From the beginning of the 1960s, a widespread discourse denounced the ‘dysfunctions’ of large housing estates. While the access to healthy housing and the social project of the large housing estates satisfied the working classes, it denounced the degradation of the exterior space, the segregation of the population, violence and anomie… The problems resulting from the dilation of space and the disappearance of public spaces were considered by Team X and the promoters of the new towns. The “politique de la ville” in France and today the urban renewal carried out by the ANRU (The National Urban Renewal Agency in France) include programs for the rehabilitation of large housing estates built in the 1950s and 1970s. They include a reflection on the development of the interface between private and outdoor spaces, whether they are private, public or collective. Through this seminar, the idea is to put into perspective the story of the birth of these new collective spaces that make up the large housing estates in France and in Europe, the importance that was given to them in the planning processes and then in the rehabilitation operations and the degrees of investment and appropriation on the part of the inhabitants and the residents but also to explore collective spaces as source or theater of conflicts and living together.

The selection of speakers will be based on the submission of a simple abstract with title according to the following deadlines:

Deadline to receive abstracts: Monday, December 20th, 2021

Participants’ choice: Wednesday, December 29th, 2021

Seminar dates: Monday 15 and Wednesday 16 March 2022

Contributions should be sent to the email address: ahmed.benbernou@paris-valdeseine.archi.fr

If you have any questions or requests for information, you can also contact the organization team at the same address.

The general objective of this Training School is to learn about the urban strategies, development plans and international housing assistance programs of Lebanon in general and Beirut in particular from the post war period until the August 2020 Port blast, and to evaluate how this event might be an opportunity to redefine urban and design strategies, as well as public policies on collective housing.

Training Schools (TS) aim to facilitate capacity building on a topic relevant to the theme of the respective COST Action through the delivery of intensive training on a new or emerging subject.

This TS is part of the UE COST Action 18137: European Middle-Class Mass Housing.

The main challenge of this Cost Action is to create a transnational network that gathers European researchers carrying studies on Middle-Class Mass Housing (MCMH) built in Europe since the 1950s. This network will allow the development new scientific approaches by discussing, testing, and assessing case studies and their different methodologies and perspectives.

In the Training School participate 5 local students (Beirut) and 15 foreigner students selected by the Core Group of COST Action 18137.

The Training School is aimed at new PhD & Master students of different backgrounds who have a research interest in public policies and collective housing issues. It aims to develop tools to critically analyse urban intervention, identifying the aspects that condition public policies of collective housing in Madrid’s context and cross it the other European contexts.

Registration to the Training School is free. Selected participants from outside the Beirut Community will have financial support. To be selected as trainee, it is essential to complete attached the application form.

The general objective of this Training School is to learn about the urban strategies, development plans and international housing assistance programs of Lebanon in general and Beirut in particular from the post war period until the August 2020 Port blast, and to evaluate how this event might be an opportunity to redefine urban and design strategies, as well as public policies on collective housing.

Lebanon has not implemented any state social housing, yet has historically intervened in the housing market in the form of rent controls. The notion of housing as a state responsibility in Lebanon lasted a very short period; there were several unsuccessful attempts at slum clearance, urban renewal, and housing projects in the sixties.

Lebanon since then still suffer from a severe housing shortage and most of collective housing complexes were built under the rental scheme purpose targeting an for emerging middle-class who could only afford to rent rather than buy. Lebanon is one of the most urbanized countries in the Arab region, with a legacy of uncontrolled urban growth and sprawl. According to the UNHCR and UN-Habitat report from 2014, the national average price for residential properties ranged from 3,800 to 4,500 USD per square metre, the significant proportion of the population find themselves excluded from the housing market. (UNHCR and UN-Habitat (2014), Housing, Land & Property Issues in Lebanon: Implications of the Syrian Refugee Crisis August 2014 P. 17)

As recognised by the Government of Lebanon, the state has been historically absent in terms of affordable housing with no investment in housing provision or effective intervention in land markets. (Government of Lebanon, Council for Development and Reconstruction (2016), Habitat III National Report: Final Report. P.53)

The few public social housing projects have been led or co-led by municipalities, are of an extremely small scale and those older developments are falling into disrepair. (UN-Habitat, 2016d. P.58) In the absence of social housing provision by the state, rent control has been one limited means by which the government has promoted access to adequate housing for all since 1940. Rent controls became problematic with the Lebanese civil war and the depreciation of the Lebanese pound that saw owners of rent controlled properties “left with mediocre rental income which fails to cover maintenance costs”. (Blominvest Bank (2014), The End of Rent Control in Lebanon: Impact Analysis ) With the high value of real-estate in central Beirut, properties subject to rent control have often fallen into disrepair given that land value is more profitable than rental value with its associated maintenance costs. As this is eventually the most important to Beirut, the study projects were selected for their relatively high density and multistorey configuration.

In contrast with that of the Arab Middle East, Lebanon is a fairly special case in terms of social development and physical urbanization. The country’s location at the historically important node east of the Mediterranean basin, the rich history and diverse communal fabric, and the constant exposure to the Europe, all contributed to a phenomenal speed of change. Beirut, the capital, was before the Civil War the largest urban center in the region, containing the majority of economic, political, and cultural faculties.

During the war (1979) the urban populations was the highest along the non-European Mediterranean basin. With two cement plants and a limited capacity for aluminum and steel production. The prevalent construction technology is a simplified version of concrete skeletal construction with hollow concrete block infill. With high land utilization requirements and the densification of the city required a technology compatible with multi-storey configurations. Until the exponential devaluation of the Lebanese pound took its toll, such technology was within the reach of almost everybody, to the extent that it became widespread even in rural areas.

The construction market was prosperous and highly speculative well into the civil war. The sharp increase in construction wages, partially owing to labour immigration to Gulf states and mostly due to inflation, have resulted in a remarkable slowdown of building activity. Within the framework of Cost Action 18137, it is expected that the results of the Training school would
allow:

– To develop tools to survey and access post-catastrophe zones and relate them to housing themes on a broader disciplinary context;

– To test methodologies for producing multidisciplinary post-catastrophe/post-conflict (collective) housing reports;

– To familiarize with urban analysis processes;

– To foster the construction of critical arguments and concepts based on data to support urban interventions, identifying the aspects that condition public policies of collective housing;

– To be introduced to the operational mechanisms of NGOs and the role of the professional vs the professional/non-professional volunteer;

– To understand the need to develop multiple simultaneous approaches on a short, medium and longer terms in post catastrophe/post-conflict zones, through the participation in GOs and NGOs activities.

– To interpret public policies on planning and housing in Beirut, analyzing cases during the postwar
period and relate them with the intermediate periods and present situation;

– To know the current problems of local groups –therefore, the policies that supported them – and, if necessary, to redefine possible intervention strategies;

– To use Beirut’s context to cross it with other Mediterranean and European contexts.

The Training school will bring together three teaching instruments:

– Theoretical and historical sessions with key speakers.
– Expert guided tours and technical sheets of the selects case studies.
– Workshop sessions aimed at achieving the general objectives indicates. We will work in groups of six students, applying a role-playing methodology based on the social habitat triangle. Each group will have a teacher and/or a support expert.

The Training School is face-to-face, and attendance is compulsory, controlled by daily personal signature in order to get reimbursed. Attendance at the TS is restricted to those enrolled.

Local Key Speakers
– Prof. Mona Harb, Professor of Urban Studies and Politics, Coordinator, Graduate Programs in Urban Planning, Policy and Design Department of Architecture and Design; Research Lead, Beirut Urban Lab Maroun Semaan Faculty of Engineering and Architecture American University of Beirut (AUB), Beirut, Lebanon.
– Prof. Elie Harfouche, Assistant Professor Architecture and Urbanism Department, Lebanese American University (LAU). D.E.S. Diplôme d’Etudes Supérieures Architecture, Académie Libanaise des Beaux-Arts, Lebanon M.S. Architectural History, University of London, England. His current research focuses on the history and current state of social housing in Lebanon.

International Trainers
– Prof. Mónica Pacheco, Assistant Professor Department of Architecture and Urbanism, Instituto Superior das Ciências do Trabalho e da Empresa, Lisbon (ISCTEIUL). Holder of a Diploma degree in Architecture from Faculty of Architecture of Technical University Lisbon (FA-UTL), a MA in Housing in Urbanism from the Architectural Association in London (AA); PhD Degree. Research Fellow from Bartlett (UCL); interest focused on critical reading of pre-established systems of knowledge transfer trough postcolonial transnational organizations and education systems, their mutual impact and role in (re)theorizing discourses and agendas in housing and urbanism, the (re)shaping the profession and the professional. Grant Holder Scientific Representative Cost Action 18137.
– Prof. Ricardo Camacho, Invited Professor Department of Architecture and Urbanism, Instituto Superior das Ciências do Trabalho e da Empresa, Lisbon (ISCTE-IUL). Holder of a Diploma degree in Architecture from Faculty of Architecture of Technical University Lisbon (FA-UTL), a MArchII Graduate School of Design (GSD Harvard University). His research interests focus on the Middle East Modern Architecture and he is co-author of the two volumes of “Modern Architecture Kuwait 1949-1989” (Niggli 2016 and 2018) and “PanArab Modernism 1968-2018: The History of Architectural Practice in the Middle East” (Actar 2020).

Local Trainers
– Prof. Nadine Hindi, Associate Professor at Notre Dame University-Louaize (NDU) in Lebanon, at the department of Architecture since 2015. Holder of a bachelor’s degree in architecture from the American University of Beirut, she pursued a Master and a PhD degree in urban regeneration at the University of Barcelona in Spain. Her research and publications focus on urban topics including urban forms, urban history, war geography, public spaces, and waterfront cases.
– Prof. Kristine Samra, Lecturer at Notre Dame University-Louaize (NDU) in Lebanon, at the department of Architecture since 2010. Holder of a bachelor’s degree in architecture from Notre Dame University-Louaize (NDU), a Master degree in urbanism at the Lebanese University and a PhD degree in architecture and the built environment at Ulster University – Northern Ireland- UK. Her research focuses on urban issues including cities in conflict, social exclusion, and urban borders.
– Arch. Jad Cortas (Studio 33). BArch from Notre Dame University-Louaize (NDU) He developed an extensive residential and F&B portfolio of projects in Lebanon, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Jordan.
– Samar Mikati Kaissi, Associate University Librarian, American University Special collections and Archives (AUB).

The selection of cases of studies developed in Beirut to be visited tried to cover the following:
1) representative examples of different planning paradigms and cultural models, particularly in the post war period;
2) housing schemes reflecting varied urban challenges to the mass housing needs;
3) examples presenting different social, economical, demographical, and political (pre)conditions (ethnic/religious, refugees/newcomers, etc.).
4) an overview that allows a comprehensive overview of housing policies from the mid 20th century onwards.

Training Schools (TS) aim to facilitate capacity building on a topic relevant to the theme of the respective COST Action through the delivery of intensive training on a new or emerging subject.

This TS is part of the UE COST Action 18137: European Middle-Class Mass Housing.

The main challenge of this Cost Action is to create a transnational network that gathers European researchers carrying studies on Middle-Class Mass Housing (MCMH) built in Europe since the 1950s. This network will allow the development new scientific approaches by discussing, testing, and assessing case studies and their different methodologies and perspectives.

In the Training School participate 17 local students (Madrid) and 13 foreigners selected by the Core Group of COST Action 18137.

The Training School is aimed at new PhD & Master students of different backgrounds who have a research interest in public policies and collective housing issues. It aims to develop tools to critically analyse urban intervention, identifying the aspects that condition public policies of collective housing in Madrid’s context and cross it the other European contexts.

Registration to the Training School is free. Selected participants from outside the Madrid Community will have financial support. To be selected as trainee, it is essential to complete attached the application form.

The general objective of the Training School is to learn about the public policies on collective housing applied in Madrid in the second half of the 20th century and to evaluate their social, urban and political suitability by analysing unique cases from different periods.

Within the framework of Cost Action 18137, it is expected that the results of the Training school would provide data and analysis that would allow:

– To know the current problems of these groups –therefore, the policies that supported them – and, if necessary, to redefine possible intervention strategies.

– To examine if public policies on collective housing have been suitable instruments for the configuration and consolidation of the middle class, characterized, among other criteria, by the provision (possession) of decent housing.

Introduction to analysis concepts and instruments of public policies and collective housing sets.

To know the development of collective housing policies in Madrid through the analysis of cases during the period 1939-act.

Acquisition of the tools to carry out critical analysis on urban intervention.

To identify the aspects that condition public policies of collective housing from the triangle of social habitat defined by M. Castell and others: urbs, civitas and polis.

Generate academic networks at European level.

The Training school will bring together three teaching instruments:

– Theoretical and historical sessions with key speakers.
– Expert guided tours and technical sheets of the selects case studies.
– Workshop sessions aimed at achieving the general objectives indicates. We will work in groups of six students, applying a role-playing methodology based on the social habitat triangle. Each group will have a teacher and/or a support expert.

The TS is face-to-face and attendance is compulsory, controlled by personal signature.

Attendance at the Training School is restricted to those enrolled but the conferences on Monday October 4 and the session on Thursday October 7 are public.

International Key Speakers
Jorge Figueira. Dr. Architect and professor of History and Theory of Architecture. Coimbra University. jfigueira.arq@gmail.com

Local Key Speakers
– Alberto Leboreiro Amaro. Dr. Architect. Assistant Director-General for Regional Planning. Department of the Environment, Local Administration and Territorial Planning. Regional Government of the Community of Madrid.
– Pedro Navarrete Tortosa. Social educator. IRIS relocation coordinator, Ex commissioner of Cañada Real Ayto. Madrid and curren worker Social Housing Agency.

Local Trainers
– Alberto Leboreiro Amaro. PhD. Architect. Assistant Director-General for Regional Planning. Department of the Environment, Local Administration and Territorial Planning. Regional Government of the Community of Madrid.
– Nieves Mestre. PhD. Architect and professor of Architectural Projects. Architecture School. UPM. Madrid.
– Paz Núñez Martí. PhD. Architect and professor of Architectural Construction. Alcalá University. Madrid.
– Pedro Navarrete Tortosa. Social educator. IRIS relocation coordinator, Ex commissioner for Cañada Real Madrid Town Hall and curren worker at the Social Housing Agency of Madrid.
– Roberto Goycoolea. PhD. Architect and professor of Architectural analysis. Alcalá University.

International Trainers
Uta Pottgiesser. Dra. Architect and professor in department of Architectural Engineering + Technology. Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment. Delft. The Netherlands.

Over the last few years, several urban and housing scholars have defended the idea that the urban histories and housing policies of the Southern European countries during the 20th century present some specific traits, such as the high rate of homeownership, the weight of informal urban economies, the role played by family networks in the provision of welfare, the patterns of land tenure, the link between housing and urban planning systems. These traits would defy easy comparisons between Southern European cities, on the one hand, and Northern and Eastern European ones, on the other hand. Consequently, some analytical notions forged by the global scholarly community with initial reference to specific European or even North American cities – the term gentrification is a case in point – would need to be adapted and reworked.

The Milan meeting of the COST Action EU-MCMH program aims at promoting an in-depth reflection about common features and specificities in the history of European middle-class mass housing. We will take Italy and Southern Europe as starting points to carry out a broader discussion encompassing all the geographical areas covered by the projects. The aim of the discussion will be less to perpetuate stereotypes about regional specificities than to re-articulate intra-European comparisons along potentially different lines, thus contributing to a better understanding of the multi-faceted factors that have contributed to shaping the built heritage of middle-class mass housing.

In this framework, the conference will be divided into three sessions and will address the following research questions:

1. Translations. How national policies and regulatory frameworks have been translated into planning tools, social and service standards, urban models, architectural typologies, producing diverse and sometimes conflicting narratives? Which actors, forms of knowledge and tools have been involved in this complex process of codification and negotiation?

2.Circulation. How the common traits/specific characters of national housing policies, cultures, discourses were exported, transferred, and disseminated between Southern, Northern and Eastern European countries, generating interesting processes of transfer, hybridization and adaptation of models, norms, and techniques? Is it possible to define (multi)directional import and export trajectories connecting diverse cultural milieux? Which are the privileged places, occasions, and vectors of the elaboration, transmission, or misunderstanding and resilience of cultural models?

3.Policies. How Southern European countries have been developing, in the last decades, specific policies to address the emerging needs (adaptation, upgrading, replacement) of the 20th-century middle-class housing stock? What are the cultural and economic patterns embodied by these policies, and what are the outputs in terms of social impact, value, and performance of the housing stock?

Papers could address specific case studies and comparative or multi-situated approaches to reflect on the specificities and common traits of Southern European mass housing in the framework of all the geographical areas covered by the COST MCMH projects, as well as on the trajectories of circulation of specific concepts and models among these contexts. Contributions choosing a more epistemological perspective on transversal reflections will also be encouraged.

Scholars from the EU-MCMH action are invited to submit their proposals in the form of an abstract of no more than 200 words, including contacts, affiliation, and 5 keywords, sending an email to MilanMCMH@gmail.com by August 15^th, 2021.
The organizers will notify the selected authors of the acceptance of their contributions by September 5^th, 2021.

– Wednesday 20/10 (afternoon): MC meeting + Opening Keynote Lecture;
– Thursday 21/10 (full day): Conference “Southern Europe and Beyond” + Keynote Lecture;
– Friday 22/10 (full day): Working Groups Meetings (not in parallel sessions) + Site Visit to middle class housing complexes in Milan + Final Round Table;
– Saturday 23/10 (morning): Core Group meeting;

This thematic section of ABE Journal seeks to investigate bottom-up or middling, informal or formal bodies of agents providing private housing and their potential roles in shaping the global homeownership market beyond the dominant regions of northern and western Europe and North America between the Second World War and the end of the twentieth century. These bodies may have taken the form of cooperatives comprising various formulations of landowners, real-estate agents, small-scale building contractors or entrepreneurial housing developers, lawyers, notaries, potential buyers etc. Contributions of individual case-studies or cross-case analyses from around the world will offer a global perspective on small-scale building enterprises and a wider understanding of their protagonists, set-up, modes of operation and (building) practices, as well as the actual products of their labour. A critical reassessment of these projects—whether they be small-scale, mixed-use, multi-storey buildings; row houses; multi-family homes; communal living or cohousing and other types of residential development—will unearth networks of expertise, knowledge and power and the effects of complex, multi-directional cultural transfers including those driven by ex-imperial or new geo-political relationships.

The growing scholarship on post-war informal access to shelter in the Global South begins to unveil a wide range of entrepreneurial house-building practices in urban and peri-urban contexts and legal or illegal markets. Part of this scholarship engages with a substantiated critique of informality’s idealizations, by exposing its historical linkages with broader political and economic agendas during the era of worldwide economic expansion, bookended by the end of the war and the mid-1970s recession mostly in the western world and characterised by the formulation of various “development” strategies and discourses. We wish to move beyond theorizations of historical instances of small-scale building corporations idealized as impromptu and cooperative approaches to housing or—on the antipode—criticized as architecturally unworthy, failed attempts and incomplete paths to modernization/industrialization, and engage instead in a critical understanding of small-scale entrepreneurial practices. In this vein, such entrepreneurial attitudes towards housing, which proliferated between the late-1940s and the mid-1970s, come under different names and formulations, such as “antiparochi” (exchange of a plot for flats on the same property) in Greece, “yap-sat” (construct-sell) in Turkey and “besaaz-o-befroosh” (build-and-sell) in Iran. These geographically far-flung practices, however diverse, appear to share some common ground. They seem to thrive in the absence of, or in the gaps between, a highly regulatory state or a centrally designed policy for social housing in the vein of European housing estates. Furthermore, compared to the European model of social housing, cooperative house-building practices have often allowed for a greater degree of diversity and flexibility, by enabling future occupants to have a say in the design of their own homes and, to a certain extent, the image of their cities. Other similarities may be traced to the fulfilment of basic social rights, such as access to affordable housing for the less affluent, usually associated with the promotion of homeownership or even the gradual formation of the middle-class in their respective countries.

We welcome original contributions that tackle the multi-faceted phenomenon of entrepreneurial house-building practices through the study of local strategies and/or cross-national comparisons. Possible themes may include but are not limited to: small-scale building agencies and their configurations; the profiles of the protagonists-agents; the economic, political, legal or social environment; the building practices or modes of production; the actual typologies and end-products of these processes; and post-construction experiences. We seek methodologically diverse responses to critical aspects of the phenomenon, such as: the potential involvement of the state and other formal agencies (local, nationwide or international); codes, ordinances, regulations, by-laws or laws that may have promoted such practices (such as the sale of transferable floor space index); land acquisition, land speculation and the cost of housing; potential buyers’ involvement in the design of their future homes; and the ideological underpinnings of the very entrepreneurial spirit that legitimized this type of housing practices (e.g. studies of the public discourse as expressed in daily or specialized press). Instances of response to potential transnational flows and/or development of expertise are particularly welcome. In this context in particular, we seek contributions that investigate two specific aspects of the phenomenon: on the one hand, we are interested in nurturing a discussion of small-scale, private house-building initiatives outside Europe and North America as a consequence of post-WWII official housing-aid programs initiated by the USA, the UN, and other international agencies or the particular contribution of specific individuals in the context of an indoctrination to the capitalist ethos of self-effort, risk and investment. We would also be interested in relevant flows or interactions between different countries of the global South; between them and the USSR or Eastern Europe; or between them and southern European nations. On the other hand, we seek insights on how trained local architects—as the local bearers of certain types of methodological/technical expertise—responded to these processes in the light of the formation of professional ethos and practices beyond Europe.

This guest-edited section of ABE Journal aspires to shed fresh light on the making of the modern house and the modern city from the late-1940s and the advent of international modernism until the end of the 20th century. It seeks to broaden modern and post-modern architectural and urban historiography by empowering alternative histories of post-war modernity beyond Europe and North America. Ultimately, this examination will widen current perceptions about the possible strands and shapes of international architectural and urban modernity and the active subjects that have historically produced and/or consumed it.

31 May 2021
Please send your submissions to abe@inha.fr.

More information.

The majority of Europe’s building stock is in housing and most of it is in the need of functional and technical upgrades.

We like to invite Master and PhD-students and Early Career investigators (ECI) to take part in an online TrendWorkshop.

The workshop on the future of building stock takes is organised as a cooperation of COVESTRO (PU-producer), Foltin Future Consulting, TU Delft and TH OWL.

Develop Building Concepts to enable existing City Structures and Buildings for a sustainable future and to identify trends for the construction sector.

Online meetings using Miro Board there will be with some smaller preparations in between.

Kick-off on June 2nd and 3-4 shorter online follow-ups meetings. Dates will be discussed with the participants.

Please register by sending an email to uta.pottgiesser@th-owl.de until 28 May (s.pdf)

[+] Read more .

During the past decades, mass housing buildings were developed following the post-WWII renewal. Nowadays these housing buildings are old (50–70 years old) and many do not meet the current construction requirements, such as building materials, small apartment sizes, digital and communication systems, green building standards, earthquake-resistant requirements, infrastructure systems, and so on. Therefore, these buildings do not provide a high quality of life for their residents. Because of the large quantities of these mass housing projects and their spread in many cities around the world, these post-WWII buildings now have major potential for urban regeneration processes (Jeffry & Pounder, 2016; Kleemann, et al., 2017).

In parallel to this situation, the modern world is in the wake of the 4th Industrial Revolution, which is characterized by a merger of physical and digital spaces and is consequently affecting cities and their quality of life (Jeon and Suh, 2017). Urban regeneration must take into consideration these digital innovations and harness the emerging technological changes into new development of urban renewal processes and decision-making approaches. Choi and Kim (2017) mention that many cities around the world are preparing to be smart cities via urban regeneration. In addition, these technological changes can also strengthen housing and urban reaction to future pandemic influence, which will improve the urban environment.

This thematic issue will focus on new strategies, models and tools for developing future urban renewal based on integrating new technologies and methodologies. Papers can address any of the following topics, but are not limited to:

– New methods and tools for urban renewal processes
– Digital base urban renewal
– New technologies for urban regeneration
– Post pandemic urban renewal development
– The 4th Industrial Revolution and urban regeneration
– Smart methodologies and tools of decision-making approaches for future urban renewal
– New approaches for evaluating urban renewal

Choi, C., & Kim, C. I. (2017). The 4th industrial revolution, smart cities, and sustainable urban regeneration: a perspective study. 환경정책, 25(특별호), 61-91.
Jeffry P, Pounder J, (2016), Physical and Environmental Aspects, in Roberts, P., Sykes, H., & Granger, R. (Eds.). Urban regeneration. Sage
Jeon, J., & Suh, Y. (2017). Analyzing the major issues of the 4th industrial revolution. Asian Journal of Innovation and Policy, 6(3), 262-273.
Kleemann, F., Lederer, J., Rechberger, H., & Fellner, J. (2017). GIS‐based Analysis of Vienna’s Material Stock in Buildings. Journal of Industrial Ecology, 21(2), 368-380.

Urban Regeneration, GIS, new models and tools, technology, post pandemic urban renewal.
Please provide a few keywords representative of the thematic issue (maximum of 10 words).

A paper containing original research results that has not been published elsewhere. Articles shall have a maximum length of 6,000 words (including title, abstract, tables, figures, and references list). During a potential revisions stage, after peer-review, authors can extend the article length to a maximum of 8,000 words to better address the reviewers and editors’ comments.

The journal has an article publication fee to cover its costs and guarantee that the article can be accessed free of charge by any reader, anywhere in the world, regardless of affiliation. We defend that authors should not have to personally pay this fee and advise them to check with their institutions if funds are available to cover open access publication fees. Institutions can also join Cogitatio’s Membership Program at a very affordable rate and enable all affiliated authors to publish without incurring any fees. Further information about the journal’s open access charges and institutional members can be found here.

More Information

The DOCONF series provides a comparative overview of current doctoral research in architecture, landscape architecture, and urban planning focusing on the urban challenges related to the physical – built and natural – environment of the post-socialist cities in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE), and post-soviet Asia. Those invited include doctoral students or post-doctoral researchers (with a PhD/DLA degree earned after the 1st of January 2016) – specializing in architecture, urban design, urban planning, or landscape architecture.

The DOCONF gives the chance for young researchers to find relevant international context regarding their research topic, to present and discuss in a conference, and to publish a final full paper (15000 – 20000 signs) in the double peer-review DOCONF2021 e-proceedings, or a research poster in the DOCONF exhibition. However, DOCONF gives chance for further publication in scientific journals related to our network (30000-40000 signs). In addition, you could discover Budapest, the capital city of Hungary!

DOCONF2021 proposes six conference SESSIONS with presentations
mass housing // shrinking cities // the fifties // recovery // re-collective // leisurescapes
and a research poster: next normal session.
Every session is prepared, proofread, and moderated by three academics, members of the scientific board, who are university teachers, and most of them are doctoral supervisors 1) at the BME Department of Urban Planning and Design, Budapest;  2) at a university in another post-socialist country; 3) and in a Western country.

For abstract submission give your doctoral data, select your main session (and a second possible), write your title and  250-300 words long abstract proposal related to the general topic of the DOCONF series Facing Post-Socialist Urban Heritage, and to the special topic of your main session.

In the framework of the contemporary global housing crisis, housing has a central, unquestioned role for individuals’ access to employment, education, and political citizenship. Hence the current global crisis involves remarkably similar issues, even if the concrete causes of housing disparity seem unrelated. Whether access to housing is challenged through war and persecution; lack of formal planning; or the growing unaffordability of housing as market product, the effects are the same: the reappearance of substandard tenements, lack of housing options, involuntary displacement, and growing spatial and economic inequality.

For several decades, architecture has been glaringly absent from both the analysis of and responses to the housing crisis. This is in stark contrast to the history of twentieth-century modern architecture, in which architects played a decisive role in defining mass housing as a social need to be provided as a public good and housing design and production constitutes the ground for architectural and planning experiments, playing a crucial role also in the shaping and transformation of the urban fabric.

Two dominant interpretive frameworks were proposed for this lack. The first is explained by the state’s detachment from the national housing project in the mid-1970s, the dismantling of the welfare state and privatization, and later the neoliberalization of housing markets. In this analysis, the social framework for housing as public good has been removed. The second framework points to the tight constraints of housing design, even at the high end of the market, by regulatory and financial considerations, leaving little room for architects’ expression. Consequently, “architecture” as cultural product is often seen as distinct from and separate from “housing” as a socio-economic need.

Nonetheless, the past few years saw re-emergence of the question of housing design in architects’ education and discussions of architecture’s role in and contribution to the world’s growing socio-economic inequality which is fundamentally rooted in the housing crisis (Schumacher, 2018; Self, 2016). Re-theorizing the architecture of housing as an intrinsic part of the social, financial, political, and territorial aspects of dwelling is an urgent component of the critical assessment of past and current experiences and the goal of providing insights to tackle contemporary challenges. This thematic issue of Urban Planning intends to question how the architectural discipline can contribute in closing the divorce between housing and architecture, as well as in re-articulating the question of housing as an architectural and planning problem.

The issue proposes to investigate the terminology used to designate housing as a way to question the relation between housing, architecture and planning culture. Contributions could analyze select terms, concepts and notions, considered in relation to their understanding in the housing discourse and practice, contributing to provide a new insight on urban and planning cultures, forms and policies over the 20th century.

Looking at the lexicon used to discuss dwelling, the papers could also examine the multiple origins and changing meanings of the terms, when shared by diverse fields (normative, political, planning, administrative, financial) or migrating across countries, disciplines, and cultures. Sometimes crystallized or re-invented through images produced to advance specific spatial or social meanings, the lexicon can bring together diverging local and global realms, acquiring an international dimension with diverse implication at local level.

Looking at the lexicon used to discuss dwelling, the papers could also examine the multiple origins and changing meanings of the terms, when shared by diverse fields (normative, political, planning, administrative, financial) or migrating across countries, disciplines, and cultures. Sometimes crystallized or re-invented through images produced to advance specific spatial or social meanings, the lexicon can bring together diverging local and global realms, acquiring an international dimension with diverse implication at local level.

Authors interested in submitting a paper for this issue are asked to consult the journal’s instructions for authors and submit their abstracts (maximum of 250 words, with a tentative title) through the abstracts system (here). When submitting their abstracts, authors are also asked to confirm that they are aware that Urban Planning is an open access journal with a publishing fee if the article is accepted for publication after peer-review (corresponding authors affiliated with our institutional members do not incur this fee).

The journal has an article publication fee to cover its costs and guarantee that the article can be accessed free of charge by any reader, anywhere in the world, regardless of affiliation. We defend that authors should not have to personally pay this fee and advise them to check with their institutions if funds are available to cover open access publication fees. Institutions can also join Cogitatio’s Membership Program at a very affordable rate and enable all affiliated authors to publish without incurring any fees. Further information about the journal’s open access charges and institutional members can be found here.

More Information

The members of the French team of our action are pleased to invite you to participate in the call for contributions for the seminar they are organizing on April 21st, 2021.
The purpose of this session is to inaugurate a future cycle of conferences in connection with COST Action MCMH. It will focus on the issue of urban renewal on which the CRH’s competences intersect with the concerns of many CA18137 members. More specifically, the analysis of architectural and urban strategies for the restoration and rehabilitation of the heritage of the modern movement and the identification of the different social processes that seek to maintain or attract the middle classes. More broadly, we will be able to cross-reference the narrative strategies and narrative settings that feed the projects and debates around renovation, rehabilitation and heritage, in relation with the history and the collective memories.

This seminar will be composed of 4 speakers from the French CRH team and 3 to 6 other international speakers from our action whose selection will be made on a simple abstract with the following deadlines:

Deadline to receive abstracts – New Dates: Friday, March 12th, 2021
Participants’ choice – New Dates: March 17th, 2021
Seminar date: Wednesday, April 21st, 2021 from 10:00 to 18:00 (CET) By Visio or in face-to-face depending on the evolution of the health situation.

Contributions should be sent to the email address: ahmed.benbernou@paris-valdeseine.archi.fr
If you have any questions or requests for information, you can also contact us at the same address.

The session will be held in English.

For more information, please find here the link to the preliminary program of the seminar.

We are pleased to announce the launch of the second call for contributions to produce posters on the theme of middle class and mass housing, that will remain open. You can download the attached poster template and return it to us by email to our action address mcmh.eu@gmail.com.

You have the possibility of making one or more posters. It can present a research, a general presentation of your work, a master’s program, a thesis, the presentation of your research lab, …

Your contributions will be welcome throughout the year.

For information, a collection of posters is being prepared and will be published as a book at Open Access. If you wish to be included in this publication project it is imperative to send us your poster before December 25th, 2020. For posters received after this date, a simple posting on the action website could be considered.

If you would like to participate in this call, we also invite you to take the time to fill our online survey by clicking on the following link: MCMH-Survey and this before December 25th, 2020. This information is needed to improve our analyses and the graphics that are included in the booklet and to complete the data for the future interactive map on our website.

Thank you!

The “Optimistic Suburbia II – Middle-Class Large Housing Complexes” has its starting point in a research on large housing complexes in the outskirts of Lisbon, Luanda and Macau, then enlarged to Antwerp and Milan. In the last decades of the 20th century, these housing complexes were instrumental for the urban growth, showing similarities as well as differences in Europe and beyond. Drawing from this context the conference intends to open the reflection on these complexes on broad realities, showing the multiple features of urbanizations in several geographical, chronological and social contexts.

The objective is to put into perspective the shaping and the pattern of autonomous neighbourhoods, both of private and public promotion, on the outskirts of big cities, for the middle-class and designed in the second half of the twentieth century. Originally isolated in the orbit of large cities, they were characterized by a set of high-rise buildings of modern design, which were progressively articulated with the evolution of the historical city through major roads, which often ended up determining its limits.

This model, which arose in the interwar period (1918-1939), marked, globally and in particular in the cities which were most affected by the two major wars, more than 40 years of an urban planning convinced of the benefits of decongesting the historic centres – freeing them of degraded and insalubrious living conditions –, of the rationalization of the city and of the development of metropolises served by circulatory systems of transportation to wooded suburbs. Imbued with desires of progress and social aspirations of a new culture and optimism, this model was also controversial and the target of criticism.

Although the origin of the referred model is located within an architectonic culture of central European matrix, its use occurred throughout a long time and in very diverse contexts, such as in Africa, South America and Asia (while in the United States of America this model never triumphed, facing the strength of the “American dream house”), with the middle-class as its target.

The objective of this Second International Conference is that of acknowledging the initial principles of the model proposed for the middle-class, describing and reflecting on the diversity of results and on the different ways of appropriation in very diverse geographical, social, chronological and cultural contexts. Therefore, are welcomed researches on architecture, urbanism, architecture and urbanism history, impact on the periphery urban areas, social sciences, economics, cultural issues related with the theme, as art, image and media (publications, film, photography…) and other important subjects. Aspects as terminology, concepts and representation will be addressed as well.