Data
Work: Normalizing Utopia. A Project of Systematization of Regulations on Social Housing
Location: Departamento de Proyectos Arquitectónicos (DPA), Escuela Técnica Superior de Arquitectura de Madrid (ETSAM), Universidad Politécnica de Madrid (UPM)
PhD program: Advanced Architectural Design
Author: Fernando Nieto
Thesis supervisor: Juan Herreros
International research stay: ETH Zurich, ETH Wohnforum – ETH CASE (Centre for Research on Architecture, Society & the Built Environment). Supervisor: Prof. Dietmar Eberle
Pre-defence: 08.05.14. Committee: Federico Soriano, Jesús Ulargui, Francisco Arqués (Universidad Politécnica de Madrid)
International pre-examiners: Josep Lluís Mateo (ETH Zurich), Francisco González de Canales (AA London)
Defence: 24.09.14. Committee: Xavier Monteys (Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya), Federico Soriano (Universidad Politécnica de Madrid), José Morales (Universidad de Sevilla), Mª Auxiliadora Gálvez (Universidad CEU San Pablo Madrid), Lluís Ortega (University of Illinois at Chicago)
Qualification: Excellent Cum Laude, PhD with International Distinction
Photographer: Anne Kinnunen
Recognitions: Finalist in 11th Biennial Competition for Doctoral Dissertations in Architecture arquia/tesis by Arquia Foundation (2017). Shortlisted in 16th Spanish Biennial of Architecture and Urbanism (XVI BEAU) in ‘Research and dissemination’ category (2023)
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The doctoral thesis deals with the study of the project of social collective housing from the notion of rule, understanding it from the systematization or standardization of the instruments of architectural project for social housing. Thus, it deals with an idea of taxonomic typification as an adjustment to a set of common rules which produce regulation systems. The initial hypothesis is based on the consideration of public housing as a laboratory for studying the historical ideals of comfort and quality of life. This testing ground has been a solid base that has served as a very specific meeting point between project and regulations from the first European avant-garde to nowadays. The main objective of this research is the revaluation of housing regulations, which have produced examples of undeniable quality in the national and international stage, as well as an attempt to update their codification. The research assumes the specific tools of the discipline of architecture for explaining a dissociation detected between the utopia of the project for social housing and the pragmatism of the regulations from the second half of last century, beyond social and cultural aspects associated to the new family arrangements, the changing technologies, the contemporary domestic rituals or the rising value of leisure time. The proposal of a new terminology that tackles new relations in the approach to housing project from the Spanish legislation results in a set of strategies to propose regulation systems. Those strategies are mainly based on mechanisms for spatial qualification which allow a new approach between these rules and the current ways of living.