Feeling at home. the assessment as a tool to design social housing

Abstract

The real city is the one of its inhabitants, and not the one that was planned inside a perimeter. In it, the dwelling is a place of belonging and creates the relationship with the city, representing a strategic axe to overcome poverty and urban substandard conditions. Through assessment, it is possible to extract clues to design new housing proposals or to rehabilitate the existing ones, considering the residential problem in its multiple dimensions, focusing on the needs of the demand and not in the possibilities or the interests of the supply. The evaluation methodology, including physical, economic and social elements, is an important breakthrough since the usual thing is to consider only the economic facts, and even within this, nothing else than the initial cost. Physical, economic and social aspects are analysed separately but with a similar mechanic, to arrive to a final result that relates them, allowing to compare different proposals in an comprehensive way. This paper is a reflection towards planning the settlement - the house – the home, and think on the facts and on the consequences of their transformed environment. And how liveability indicators address to enable families to feel the ownership of their surroundings and of their own home, recognizing them as part of their identity.