FLEXIBLE HOUSING: THE MEANS TO THE END

Jeremy Till and Tatjana Schneider, School of Architecture, University of Sheffield, UK.

INTRODUCTION1

Tatjana Schneider’s paper has already made the arguments as to why flexible housing
is a relevant, even essential, part of future housing provision on grounds of social,
economic and environmental sustainability. This paper examines ways in which
flexible housing may be achieved, using examples from twentieth century housing.

It is first necessary to define what we mean by flexible housing. Our definition

determines flexible housing as housing that can adapt to the changing needs of users.
This definition is deliberately broad. It includes the possibility of choosing different
housing layouts prior to occupation as well as the ability to adjust one’s housing over
time. It also includes the potential to incorporate new technologies over time, to adjust
to changing demographics, or even to completely change the use of the building from
housing to something else. Flexible housing in our definition is thus a wider category
than that of adaptable housing, which is the term generally used to denote housing
that can adapt to user’s changing physical needs, in particular as they grow older or
lose full mobility.2

With such a broad definition, it is maybe not surprising that there are multiple
methods of achieving flexibility. The approach in this paper is not prescriptive and
does not attempt to organise these different approaches into an overall methodology.
Instead it explores flexibility through the issue of determinate and indeterminate
design, or as we identify ‘hard’ and soft systems. This differs from the previous
approaches of categorising flexibility, most notably that derived out of the open

1
This paper is based on a research project based at the University of Sheffield entitled “The
Past, Present and Future of Flexible Housing”, funded by the Arts and Humanities Research
Council.
2
Caitriona Carroll, Julie Cowans, and David Darton, eds., Meeting Part M and Designing
Lifetime Homes (York: Joseph Rowntree Foundations, 1999), Christian Woetmann Nielsen
and I. Ambrose, "Lifetime Adaptable Housing in Europe," Technology and Disability 10, no.
1 (1999). Julie Brewerton and David Darton, Designing Lifetime Homes (York: Joseph
Rowntree Foundations, 1997).
 FLEXIBLE HOUSING: THE MEANS TO THE END

building movement. Kendall and Teicher’s Residential Open Building3 is probably the
most comprehensive and rigorous analysis of flexible housing of recent years.
However, whilst the social intents and economic rationale are admirable, the method
tends towards suggesting an all-or-nothing approach that is eventually technically
determined. This is potentially off-putting to the housing designer or provider. Our
approach is starts with some basic principles and then suggests alternative methods of
achieving flexibility that allow anything from wholesale change down to quite
discreet, but potentially extremely useful alterations.

BUILT IN OBSOLESCENCE

The basic principles of flexibility start with its opposite – namely that inflexibility
should be designed out. A number of conditions, mainly economic, lead to the vast
majority of contemporary housing being actually inflexible, thereby building-in
obsolescence. In the UK market-led factors largely determine the shape of housing,
even in the hugely diminished public sector.4 First, in the private sector there is a
massive excess of demand over supply due to the scarcity of land, or at least land in
the right places.5 This means that with houses selling almost automatically, there is no
incentive for developers to innovate or offer added value. Their main objective is get
the housing sold as quickly as possible and in this the future needs of the user hardly
registers as a factor. Secondly because the number of rooms is seen to be more
important that the size of rooms, private housing tends to be designed down to
minimum space standards and designated room types. This results in what Andrew
Rabeneck calls tight-fit functionalism6, the idea that rooms can only be used in one
predetermined way because of the size and shapes of the rooms. For example dining
rooms are often included because they add perceived status to the property – but they
are long and thin and usually have two doors thus making them extremely difficult to
use for other purposes. Thirdly, because of the economics of the building industry,

3
S Kendall and J. Teicher, Residential Open Building (London and New York: E & FN Spon,
2000).
4
In 2003 figures for the value of new construction were £2,009m for the public sector and
£13,183 for the private sector.
5
The so-called Barker report commissioned by the UK government in 2004 looked specifically
at the issue of lack of housing supply. Kate Barker, Review of Housing Supply. Delivering
Stability: Securing Our Future Housing Needs (London: Her Majesty’s Stationery Office,
2004).
6
Andrew Rabeneck, David Sheppard, and Peter Town, "Housing Flexibility?," AD, no. 11
(1973): p 698.

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 FLEXIBLE HOUSING: THE MEANS TO THE END

outdated and inherently inflexible construction techniques are the norm.7 Internal
partitions are often loadbearing8 and roofspaces generally filled with trussed rafters
which means that they can never be converted in the future. Finally, services are fitted
in a time-honoured and now outmoded manner, buried into walls or floors and thus
extremely difficult to add to or upgrade.

In effect, therefore, the housing sector is building in obsolescence through inflexibility;

as one housing developer told us this is not entirely accidental. Inflexibility means that
once the user’s need change, as inevitably they do, the occupants have no choice but
to move. This keeps the housing market in a state of permanent demand. If flexibility
were built in, occupants would be able to adapt their houses and thus stay longer in
them; this would depress the housing market and limit the continuing sales on which
developers depend. Housing developers actually promoting flexibility was thus
described to us as like turkeys voting for Christmas. The only way to get over this
problem is to show that building in flexibility adds value to the property and it can
thus command a higher price for little, if any, extra investment.9 If this could be
achieved, then avoiding inflexibility would be the first step towards a more flexible
housing provision. This can be achieved in three ways. First, through the consideration
of the construction most simply through the reduction of loadbearing or solid internal
partitions, as well as through the avoidance of forms of roof construction (i.e. trussed
rafters) that shut down the possibility of future expansion. Secondly, through
technological considerations and in particular the reduction of non-accessible or non-
adaptable services. Thirdly through consideration of the use of space, i.e. through the
elimination of tight-fit functionalism and rooms that can used or accessed in only one
way.

Whilst these three relatively simple principles would go some way to avoid
inflexibility, one other aspect also needs to be addressed. Probably the most inflexible

7
This problem has been the subject of a number of UK Government reports, most recently the
so-called Egan Report, John Egan, Rethinking Construction : The Report of the Construction
Task Force (London: Department for Transport Local Government and the Regions, 1998).
8
In some cases even if they are not loadbearing, they are made of blockwork because, as one
of our interviewees said, this gives a feeling of ‘superior robustness’ to potential purchaser.
Anyone who has attempted to knock down blockwork knows that it is not exactly the most
flexible material.
9
This research has not been carried out, though there is some evidence that potential
purchasers do value the ability to adapt their future homes, if only if because they feel they
are being given a choice. In the UK only one small developer, The Lifebuilding Company,
has explicitly addressed the issues of flexibility as part of a wider sustainable agenda.

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 FLEXIBLE HOUSING: THE MEANS TO THE END

of all recent housing is not that of the private developer, but of architects who have
used the word flexibility for its rhetorical value as a signal of progressive modernity,
but have not carried through the principles that we outline below. This results in
housing schemes that are representations of flexibility, but in use are often less flexible
than normal housing. One example of this is the 1988 housing scheme designed by
Gunther Domenig at Neufeldweg, Graz in Austria.10 The early design stages of this
project were informed by participation and user choice and resultant design boldly
expresses the potential for flexibility in its frame and infill system. However, because
of the technical complexity, largely inflicted by the complex geometries, the scheme
has remained unchanged since its construction. Visiting it, one is struck by a sense of
a frozen moment in time and of early obsolescence, when flexible housing at its best
should provoke a feeling of temporal looseness. What this scheme, and others like it,
suggests is the need for a certain scepticism towards the more rhetorical examples of
flexibility, particularly those that doggedly take the word at face value to denote
elements that move and flex (another standard signal of progressive modernity). As we
shall see, some of the most successful examples of flexibility tend to work in the
background.11 As Gerard MacCreanor notes, flexible housing often works through its
very ordinariness, employing robust and timeless techniques, rather than through
foreground imagery or overtly representational signals.12

INHERENT FLEXIBILITY

In order to move from avoiding inflexibility to building-in flexibility it is useful to look

at two building types, the terraced house and the speculative office, that are often
described as inherently flexible in order to see if they contain generic principles. In the
course of our research by far the most commonly mentioned example of flexibility was
the London terraced house, in particular the late C18 early C19 examples which are
typically three or four stories, plus basement, and flat-fronted. Over the course of the
years, these have been added both horizontally (at the back) and vertically (the
ubiquitous loft extension), knocked through, divided, joined up again and used for

10
Günther Domenig, "Wohnprojekt "Neufeldweg" in Graz/A," Deutsche Bauzeitschrift 39, no.
4 (1991).
11
See Jeremy Till & Sarah Wigglesworth, "The Background Type," in Accomodating Change,
ed. French (London: Architecture Foundation, 2002).
12
Gerard MacCreanor, "Adaptability," A+T . Special issue. Vivienda y flexibilidad (1), no. 12
(1998).

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 FLEXIBLE HOUSING: THE MEANS TO THE END

countless other purposes.13 It is worth, therefore, analysing the aspects of these houses
that give them their inherent flexibility. The first is the relatively generous space
provision in relation to contemporary standards. This has allowed subdivision both
horizontally and vertically (typically the front room might be divided to give a kitchen
and a bathroom might be placed between the first and back rooms; vertically the
generous space allows false ceilings for services where necessary). Secondly, their
construction repeats a small number of simple techniques, allowing relatively
unskilled labour (the infamous and probably mythical firm of Bodgit and Creepaway
comes to mind). Finally the basic layout, and in particular the placing of the staircase
allows additions to be made at the tear of the building in a flexible and infinitely
variable manner (the ubiquitous back extension).

Whilst not all these aspects of the terraced house can be transferred directly to the
contemporary context, they do begin to suggest some generic principles for flexible
housing. These are:

1. Space: There is a correlation between amount of space and amount of

flexibility. Some recent schemes have exploited this correlation by providing
more space but at lower specification, arguing that flexibility in the occupation
of space is of more importance than the niceties of having a fitted kitchen or
fully decorated rooms. One such is the Nemausus scheme in Nimes, France
(1985) designed by Jean Nouvel. Here undivided space with double height
areas was handed over in a semi-finished state for the tenants to fit out, though
their ultimate choice was restricted by a number of impositional rules that
dictated things like the colour of their curtains.14 This is also essentially the
approach of the loft developer, where an excess of undefined space is handed
over to the tenant to use as they will. The corollary of the space-flexibility
correlation is that limited space may be seen to limit flexibility, but at the same
time there are often demands to use that space in multiple ways; in these cases
one has to work harder to achieve flexibility through other design methods.

13
Stefan Muthesius, The English Terraced House (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1982).
remains the standard work. See Michael Thompson, Rubbish Theory : The Creation and
Destruction of Value (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1979). for a brilliant analysis of the
cycles of decay and restoration in the London terraced house.
14
“Lofts: 120 logements PLA à Nîmes”, L'architecture d'aujourd'hui, 1985, 239, p.22-26. L.
Duroy, “Nîmes: le Quartier Nemausus”, L'architecture d'aujourd'hui, 1987, 252, , p.2-10.
"Nemausus 1, Wohnüberbauung mit lofts, Nîmes, 1985", Werk, Bauen + Wohnen, 3/1990,
p.56-58.

5
 FLEXIBLE HOUSING: THE MEANS TO THE END

2. Construction: There is a relationship between construction techniques and

flexibility. The specialist and multi-headed approach to housing construction,
particularly in the UK, limits future flexibility in so much as one needs
specialised and multiple skills to make any adaptations. Against this, following
the example of the terrace house, many of the most successful contemporary
flexible housing schemes rely on simple and robust construction techniques,
which allow future intervention, or at least place the specialist elements such
as services in easily accessible and separate zones so that only one set of
specialists is needed to make changes. This latter is on contrast to standard
construction when just to update, say, wiring one needs to get, in addition to
the electrician, a carpenter to lift floors, a plasterer to patch the ceiling and a
decorator to make good in addition to the electrician.

3. Design for adaptation: Simple, but considered, design moves such as the
placing of staircases, service cores or entrances allow future flexibility at no
extra cost. However, for this approach to be successful, the designer has to
project future scenarios and adaptations onto the plan to see what can be
accommodated. Exemplary of this approach is the work of the architect Peter
Phippen in the UK, with the development of his wide frontage house with a
central service and staircase core. This plan form allows free disposition of
rooms around the edges, as well the possibility to make additions to the rear of
the property.

A few contemporary architects have specifically followed these principles, most

notably Caruso St John’s project for terraced housing in Berlin (2001) which draws
on the plan form of the traditional UK terraced house, but provides still further
flexibility by making all the internal walls non-loadbearing. The scheme is at the
same time simple and sophisticated.15

The second type of accommodation that is often mentioned as inherently flexible

is speculative commercial offices. These are designed with no specific tenant in
mind and allow continual adaptations to be made to the basic shell to suit the
occupants at any given time.16 Importantly they also allow upgrading and easy

15
See www.berlin-terrace.de/entw4.htm and www.carusostjohn.com for details
16
See Bea Sennewald, "Flexibility by Design," Architecture (AIA) 76, no. 4 (1987).

6
 FLEXIBLE HOUSING: THE MEANS TO THE END

relocation of services. Again, we can identify generic principles that can be

transferred to flexible housing;

4. Layers. The clear identification of layers of construction from structure, skin,

services, internal partitions to finishes. This allows increasing control (and thus
flexibility) as one goes through the layers.17

5. Typical Plan: The speculative office is the classic shell and core structure. The
external shell is relatively inflexible; the core provides access and services. In
between the space is indeterminate, with large spans and open plans allowing
non-loadbearing partitions to be put in and removed at will. The speculative
office almost by definition provides generic space, in contrast to the highly
specific and determined space that one finds in most housing. It is what Rem
Koolhaas denotes the “typical plan…zero degree architecture, architecture
stripped of all traces of uniqueness or specificity”.18

6. Services: The disposition of services in the speculative office is carefully

considered to allow future change and upgrading. Vertical services are
marshalled into easily accessible ducts. Horizontally, raised floors and/or
dropped ceilings allow endless permutations in the eventual disposition of
service outlets.

Some of these principles from the speculative office have already been exploited in
schemes such as Immeubles Lods in France (1972) which explicitly used office
building technology and planning principles to give maximum flexibility in the
housing.19 The obverse is also becoming quite common, with 1960s and 1970s office
buildings, which no longer have the floorplates or storey height to deal with
contemporary office needs and servicing, lending themselves to be converted into
housing.20

17
The principles that Habraken outlines in his classic, and politically motivated, book on
housing are best found not in the social housing sector that he addresses but in the
commercial office sector. N. J. Habraken, Supports : An Alternative to Mass Housing
(London: Architectural Press, 1972).
18
Rem Koolhaas and Bruce Mau, S,M,L, Xl (Rotterdam: 010 Publishers, 1995), p 325.
19
Emmanuel Doutriaux, "L'experience De La Grand-Mare Rouen 1968-1970," Moniteur
Architecture AMC, no. 114 (2001).
20
See among many examples, the scheme at Bogenalle, Hamburg (2005).

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 FLEXIBLE HOUSING: THE MEANS TO THE END

Using these six principles of inherent flexibility from the terraced house and the
speculative office one can begin to enter the territory of designing specifically for
flexibility in housing. The next stage of our research, and this paper, attempts to
develop a more comprehensive classification of methods by which flexibility may be
achieved in housing. Our classification draws on some previous approaches,21 and
whilst it attempts to cover most conditions of flexibility, it does not intend to be
prescriptive in setting out a set of rigid rules for potential designers. Our classification
works in two directions. First through investigating flexibility at different scales of
housing (from the block, through the building and unit, to the individual room) and
secondly by indicating methods by which flexibility has been or may be achieved. The
rest of the paper concentrates on the latter; we propose two broad categories, use and
technology. Use refers generally to the way that the design affects the way that
housing is occupied over time, and generally refers to flexibility in plan. Technology
deals with issues of construction and servicing, and the way that these affect the
potential for flexibility. We then subdivide each of these two categories into ‘soft’ and
‘hard’ techniques.

HARD AND SOFT

‘Soft’ refers to tactics either which allow a certain indeterminacy, whereas hard refers
to elements that more specifically determine the way that the design may be used. In
terms of use it may appear a contradiction that flexibility can be achieved through
being either very indeterminate in plan form or else very determinate, but historically
both approaches have developed in parallel throughout the twentieth century. Soft
use22 allows the user to adapt the plan according to their needs, the designer
effectively working in the background. With hard use, the designer works in the
foreground, determining how spaces can be used over time. As we shall see, soft use
generally demands more space, even some redundancy and is based on a relaxed
approach to both planning and technology, whereas hard use is generally employed
where space is at a premium and a room has to be multifunctional.

21
in particular Stephen Kendall and Jonathan Teicher, Residential Open Buildings (London: E &
FN Spon, 2000). Rabeneck, Sheppard, and Town, "Housing Flexibility?." H. Priemus,
"Flexible Housing: Fundamentals and Background," Open House International 18, no. 4
(1993).
22
The term ‘soft’ is drawn from Jonathan Raban’s seminal book on urban culture, Soft City:
“…the city goes soft; it awaits the imprint of an identity. For better or worse, it invites you to
remake it, to consolidate it into a shape you can live in.” Jonathan Raban, Soft City
(London: Hamilton, 1974).

8
 FLEXIBLE HOUSING: THE MEANS TO THE END

Soft Use

The notion of soft use is embedded in the vernacular house. As Paul Oliver, the key
historian of vernacular architecture notes: “With the growth of families, whether
nuclear or extended, the care of young children and the infirm, and the death of the
aged, the demands on the dwelling to meet a changing family size and structure are
considerable.”23 In vernacular housing the range of responses to these issues is then
oriented by culture and climate, ranging from the single space used for the whole
gamut of family rituals to the simple division of the traditional cottage. Clearly the
intervention of the expert designer removes such approaches from the realm of the
vernacular, but nonetheless the principles of soft use remain. Some of the pioneering
examples of modernist housing explicitly use the notion of indeterminacy as the a
response to the housing shortage crisis in the 1920s and 1930s, arguing that a flexible
approach could cater for a wider range of occupants. Typical of these is the Britz
Project in Berlin (1925-31) designed by Taut and Wagner.24 The design provides three
similarly sized rooms (denoted on the plan simply as ‘zimmer’ – ‘room’) off a central
hallway, with the services (bathroom and kitchen) in a separate zone. The occupation
of the rooms is thereby left open to the interpretation by various possible user groups.

Britz Housing, Berlin (1925). Taut and Wagner. Typical Plan

A more refined version of this strategy can be found in one of the classic projects of
Czech modernism, the Letohradska project in Prague (1937) by Evzen Rosenberg25 in
which each floor typically comprises of two apartments of different size. Within the

23
Paul Oliver, Dwellings : The Vernacular House Worldwide (London: Phaidon, 2003), pp
166-7.
24
Norbert Huse, ed., Vier Berliner Siedlungen Der Weimarer Republik: Britz, Onkel Toms
Hütte, Siemesstadt, Weiße Stadt (Berlin: Argon Verlag, 1987).
25
Rostislav Svcha, The Architecture of New Prague 1895-1945 (Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press,
1999), pp 52-54.

9
 FLEXIBLE HOUSING: THE MEANS TO THE END

individual apartments, rooms are of an equal size and can be accessed separately from
a central lobby, whilst the services are contained in a separate zone.

Letohradska, Prague (1937). Evzen Rosenberg. Typical Plans

This indeterminacy approach is also beautifully exploited in the Hellmutstrasse

scheme in Zurich (1991) by ADP Architektur und Planung, which is one of the most
sophisticated flexible housing schemes of recent years. The project arose out of a
community led approach with all members of a housing cooperative contributing to
the design process. The design is spilt into three distinct horizontal zones. At the top is
a line of similarly sized rooms divided by loadbearing partitions, and with the
possibility of inserting non-loadbearing partitions to define circulation. Then there is a
row of serviced spaces that can be either bathrooms or kitchens. Finally, a zone
containing what is usually a kitchen and living space, but which can also be used as a
self-contained studio apartment. All apartments are accessed from an external
staircase and shared balconies. The overall arrangement allows multiple arrangements
to be achieved, from large groups of single people living together right down to self-
contained one-person studio apartments. The zoning also allows future changes to
made with ease, though in practice this would require neighbouring apartments to
simultaneously agree to changes in terms of expansion and contraction.

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 FLEXIBLE HOUSING: THE MEANS TO THE END

Hellmutstrasse, Zurich (1991): ADP Architektur und Planung: Possible arrangements

If one approach to soft use depends on the designer providing a physically fixed, but
socially flexible, layout, a more common solution is to provide raw space that can
then be divided according to the needs of the occupants. This is not as straightforward
as it may sound. Provision of open space alone does not suffice, or at least it may be
inefficient in terms of space usage. The designer has to carefully consider the best
points for access (generally in the centre of the plan), the position of servicing (either
in specific zones or else widely distributed) and the most efficient module size (a
standard module allows repetition in structural division and components but should
not limit options for subdivision). To ensure an efficient and flexible use of space,
designers will often use hypothetical layouts to test their access, servicing and module
strategies.

This approach to indeterminate open space was facilitated by the new constructional
systems available to the early modernist architects, which allowed larger span
structures and light infill partitions. Some of the earliest examples can therefore be
found in classic modernist housing schemes such as the model housing at the
Weissenhofsiedlung in Stuttgart (1927). In the block designed by Mies van de Rohe a
simple framed structure allows the residents to divide their apartments up as they
wish, though the final layout is limited by the positioning of columns; the provision of
the servicing is also minimal by today’s standards.

11
 FLEXIBLE HOUSING: THE MEANS TO THE END

Weissenhofsiedlung, Stuttgart (1927). Mies. Generic layout (bottom). Typical plans (top)

A more developed approach can be found in schemes such as that at Montereau-

Surville in France (1971) designed by Les Frères Arsène-Henry, or the Järnbrott
Experimental Housing in Sweden (1953). In ten storey building at Montereau, only the
central service core is fixed with the remainder left open as in a speculative office. The
scheme is designed to a 900mm module, allowing WC’s and bathrooms (900, 1800),
bedrooms (1800, 2700 and 3600) and living rooms (2700, 3600, 4500) to be
accommodated. The architects designed ten hypothetical layouts, but in the end none
of these were taken up; the prospective tenants quickly learning to plan on a squared
grid, especially if this exercise was done in the actual spaces. The modular system
extended to the treatment of the external facades, so that the exterior appearance was
dependant on the tenant’s chosen internal layout and positioning of panels, a rare
example of architects passing over aesthetic control to others.26

Montereau-Surville (1971): Les Frères Arsène-Henry: ‘Empty’ Plans prior to internal division

26
See Harald Deilmann, Jörg C. Kirschenmann, and Herbert Pfeiffer, Wohnungsbau. The
Dwelling. L'habitat., 3rd ed. (Stuttgart: Karl Krämer Verlag, 1973).

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 FLEXIBLE HOUSING: THE MEANS TO THE END

The Järnbrott Experimental Housing is one of the few flexible housing schemes to have
been properly evaluated after occupation.27 Again it works on the principle of an open
plan space with fixed bathrooms and kitchens, and tenants being shown alternative
layouts. A survey carried out ten years after completion found that the majority of
changes had been made within the smaller units. This finding supports a common
theme from our research interviews, namely that the provision of more space in itself
provides a certain degree of flexibility, whilst smaller units are exactly the ones which
require the most flexibility to be built in.

Whilst most of the examples of soft use are within apartment blocks, the principles can
also be applied at the level of the individual house. One of the best demonstrations is
in a recent project in Scotland, the Affordable Rural Housing Demonstration Project
(2000) designed by the architect and researcher Gokay Deveci. Services are placed in
a central block, around which a pinwheel of rooms can be divided up or left open
through using a simple reusable partition system. In one case the partitions were on
hinges, allowing adaptation on a day-to-day basis. The plan allows multiple
arrangements, for example the subdivision of the open plan space might be in
response to the need for a second bedroom for visitors, or to the previously unforeseen
need to accommodate a carer.28

27
Flexible flats: an investigation in an experimental block of flats in Jarnbrott, Gothenburg,
Stockholm, Statens institut for byggnadsforskning, 1966.
28
<www2.rgu.ac.uk/subj/search/Research/SustainableHousing/Affordable/Publications/Affordab
leDemo.html> {accessed 20 December 2004]

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 FLEXIBLE HOUSING: THE MEANS TO THE END

Affordable Rural Housing Demonstration Project (2000: Gokay Deveci: Alternative Plans

Hard Use

The notion of soft use lends itself in particular to a participative approach to design,
allowing a degree of tenant control at both design stages and over the life of the
building. In contrast, hard use is use that is largely determined by the architect. To this
extent hard use is consistent with the normative urge of the architect to keep control,29
and it is therefore maybe not surprising that hard use is associated with some of
twentieth century’s iconic architects. Thus in the Maison Loucher (1928-9) designed
by Le Corbusier a combination of folding furniture and sliding walls allows different
configurations for day and night. Corbusier, in typically polemical style, argues that
the purchaser is paying for 46m2 of space but through the cleverness of the design is
actually getting 71m2 of effective space.

29
See my chapter in Architecture and Participation which argues that any form of participatory
process presents a challenge to this control. {Till, 2005 #330}

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 FLEXIBLE HOUSING: THE MEANS TO THE END

Maison Loucher (1928-9): Le Corbusier: Night Plan (left) and Day Plan (right)

This scheme identifies some of the common features of hard use. First the way it
operates best where space is at a premium. Second, the use of moving or folding
components. Third, the highly specific nature of the configurations produced. Lawn
Road apartments (1934) by Wells Coates, the seminal Schröder Huis (1924) by
Rietveld,30 and Kleinwohnung project (1931) by Carl Fleiger, as classic examples of
hard use all use these strategies.

Kleinwohnung project (1931): Carl Fleiger: Day plan (left) and night plan (right)

There are comparatively few ‘hard use flexible housing schemes in relation to the
continuing interest in soft use approaches; they are generally confined to
demonstration or one-off projects, and usually accompanied by a rhetorical stance
which may be at odds with the real needs of the users, for whom the discipline of
moving walls and folding beds on a daily basis is likely to be over-onerous. The fate of

30
Alice Friedman makes it clear that the divisible open plan design was conceived in close
collaboration with the client for the house, Truus Schröder, and thus not the whim of the
architect as controller. See Alice Friedman, Women and the Making of the Modern House
(New York: Abrams, 1998), pp 64-91.

15
 FLEXIBLE HOUSING: THE MEANS TO THE END

Lawn Road is instructive here. Originally the scheme was occupied by a group of
young intellectuals, including Marcel Breuer, Lazlo Moholy-Nagy, and Agatha
Christie, who were sympathetic with the ideology of the project. As they moved on,
the apartments became increasingly difficult to rent out, and eventually the empty
scheme fell into disrepair. Following its recent renovation, Lawn Road now houses a
mixture of government ‘keyworkers’ in shared ownership tenure (nurses, teachers etc
who would otherwise not be able to afford London house prices) and young
professionals, apparently attracted by the lifestyle choice that the apartments offered
though not put off by the very high cost per square metre of the leasehold
apartments.31 The minimal space standards and discipline associated with hard use
may thus have a future relevance for two groups of people, one of who have no other
choice but accept small, the other who see small as beautiful lifestyle accessory.

TECHNOLOGY

If one method of achieving flexibility in housing is through a consideration of use

through design in plan32, another is through the deployment of technology. Clearly
these two approaches are not mutually exclusive. We have seen how the development
of long span structures allowed the elimination of loadbearing partitions, which in turn
allows soft use. However, in other schemes it is the chosen technology rather than the
specifics of the plan that is the seen as the primary means of achieving flexibility.
Technology here encompasses construction techniques, structural solutions, and
servicing strategies, or a combination of these approaches. Again we have divided
these approaches into ‘hard’ and ‘soft’.

Hard Technology

By hard technologies we mean those technologies that are developed specifically to

achieve flexibility, and which are the determining feature of the scheme. Of all these,
the approach that has been most systematically developed is that of the open building
movement. This grew out of John Habraken’s research and his book Supports: an

31
Ricard Carr, Lawn Road Flats (2004 [cited May 2005]); available from http://www.studio-
international.co.uk/architecture/lawn_road_flats_7_6_04.htm.
32
It should be noted that a few schemes also consider the section as means of allowing flexible
use over time. For example the unbuilt Projekt Wohnhaus (1984) by Anton Schweighofer is
based on an unfinished double height space which the occupants would ‘grow’ into
through the addition of floors and walls. See Werk, Bauen + Wohnen Nr. 3/1984

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 FLEXIBLE HOUSING: THE MEANS TO THE END

alternative to mass housing. The book is based around a critique of mass housing,
arguing that mass housing “reduces the dwelling to a consumer article and the dweller
to consumer”.33 Habraken argues for an alternative in which the user is given control
over the processes of dwelling. The bold, and in our mind misunderstood, move in the
book is then to harness this social programme to a technical solution. The basic
principles are straightforward, namely that housing should be considered as a structure
of supports and infills. The supports provide the basic infrastructure and are designed
as a long-life permanent base. The infills are shorter life, user determined and
adaptable. The support and infill approach also implies different levels of involvement
on the parts of the user and professional., with professionals relinquishing complete
control, particularly at the level of the infills. So far so good. Reading the sections on
supports forty years after they were first written34, one is struck by their polemical and
open-ended nature; they should be seen as a challenge to normative ways of thinking,
but have instead been taken on as a more determinist orthodoxy under the flag of
open building.

In the few examples of open building that have actually been constructed the
emphasis has shifted to the technically and constructional aspects and away from the
more socially grounded implications of flexible housing. Thus it is not surprising that
the initial interest in open building in the early 1970s waned because of the dearth of
available technical solutions such as suitable infill systems.35 One of the few UK
projects constructed at the time (the so-called PSSHAK scheme at Adelaide Road,
1979) has hardly been changed over the intervening years despite the explicit flexible
intent of the constructional technique; the main reason is apparently that the
instructions as to how the infill kit could be adapted were not passed on to subsequent
tenants.36

The main outlet for open building has been in Japan where the Ministry of
Construction has funded a number of experimental projects, most of which have been
driven by a technically determined agenda.37 This is not to deny the importance of the

33
Habraken, Supports : An Alternative to Mass Housing, p 11.
34
The Dutch edition was first published in 1961
35
see Rabeneck, Sheppard, and Town, "Housing Flexibility?."
36
R. Pike, Powell, C., "Housing Flexibility Revisited," MADE, no. 1 (2004).
37
The most complete example is Next 21 project in Osaka (1993). See Special issue: “Norma e
forma” (Norm and form). Domus, 819/1999 Oct., p. 2-98. Kendall and Teicher, Residential
Open Building.

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 FLEXIBLE HOUSING: THE MEANS TO THE END

essential principles of open building in addressing the needs of flexible housing.

However, there is a danger in these and other open building projects of getting
obsessed by the techniques, and in this the technology becomes an end in itself rather
than a background means to an end. This determinist aspect of hard technology38 is
not, of course, limited to the field of flexible housing, but can be traced in the course
of twentieth century attitudes to technology.39

Soft technology

Architects are notoriously susceptible to siren calls of technology as a means (but

quickly becoming the ends) of denoting presumed progress. The foregrounding of hard
technology allows these delusions to be perpetuated. This suggests that in flexible
housing, as in other architecture, one should move from the determinism of hard
technology to the enabling background of soft technology. Soft technology is the stuff
that enables flexible housing to unfold in a manner not completely controlled by the
foreground of construction techniques. In flexible housing this approach can be seen
in a number of schemes, many of which exploit the layering principles of open
building, but in a more relaxed and less determinist manner. Thus in the Genter
Strasse scheme in Munich (1972) designed by Otto Steidle with Doris + Ralph Thut, a
prefabricated frame can be filled according to users’ needs and wants.40 Over the last
30 years, volume, interiors, and uses have changed considerably.

38
Open building is by no means the only example of ‘hard technology’ in the flexible housing
sphere. Others include the Danish Flexibo system, the ‘Optima’ housing system designed by
Cartwright Pickard for the UK market, and to a lesser degree the self-build system designed
by Walter Segal, though in this case the technique was evolved directly out of consideration
of the user’s ongoing needs for adaptation. See respectively: “Flexibo housing complex,
Copenhagen”, Arkitektur DK. 1979.23, 6, 232-9. “DIY for architects”, Building Design,
September 24 2004. “Do-it-yourself vernacular”, Architects’ Journal, vol.172, no.51, 1980
Dec 17, p.1185-1205
39
There is a huge literature in the cultural studies of technology, much arising out the seminal
work by Marcuse and Ellul. The more recent work by Winner brings some of the earlier
work into the contemporary context. Jacques Ellul, The Technological Society, [1st
American ed. (New York: Knopf, 1964). Langdon Winner, Autonomous Technology :
Technics-out-of-Control as a Theme in Political Thought (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press,
1977), Langdon Winner, The Whale and the Reactor : A Search for Limits in an Age of High
Technology (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1986).
40
“Adaptable housing - 3 examples in Munich”, Baumeister 1977.74, 12, 1163-6..

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 FLEXIBLE HOUSING: THE MEANS TO THE END

Genter Strasse, Munich (1972). Otto Steidle with Doris + Ralph Thut; Frame and Infill

This scheme, and others like it, exploit soft technology in the form of a structural
system that allows changes to be made at a future date. This system may be in the
form of an expressed frame, as in the Genter Strasse scheme, or else simply a grid
structure that does away with the need for loadbearing internal partitions, as in the
Brandhöfchen scheme, Frankfurt (1995) designed by Rüdiger Kramm in which the
structure’s only load bearing elements are beams and columns - none of the internal
walls are load-bearing - meaning that even party walls can be removed to combine
two smaller units into one large unit. Small service cores are located on each grid line
(at the north facade), allowing for a range of connection possibilities.

The provision of services, as in the Brandhöfchen scheme, is another aspect to be

considered in the soft technology approach. This can be achieved in three ways. First
through the strategic placing of service cores to allow kitchens and bathrooms to be
placed within specific zones but not to be permanently fixed. Secondly, through the
ability to access services so that they can be updated at a later date. Thirdly through
the distribution of services across the floorplate so that they can be accessed in any
plan arrangement. The way that most housing is serviced, and in particular the wiring,
remains an obstacle to flexible housing. The incorporation of electrical outlets into
internal partitions is often necessary to meet standards of provision or disability
requirements, but this also limits future change. The distribution of services through
raised floors following office design principles gets over the first but not the second of
these problems; it is also potentially more expensive. An alternative solution to the
servicing problem is the ‘living wall’ concept developed by PCKO Architects, in which
services are concentrated along a linear service wall, which is easily accessed from
the outside (to allow service providers to make changes with minimal disruption) as
well as internally (when internal layouts are changed).

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 FLEXIBLE HOUSING: THE MEANS TO THE END

CONCLUSION

It will be seen from the above that our sympathies lie with a ‘soft’ approach to the
design of flexible housing. As noted, soft use and soft technology are by no means
mutually exclusive, and in the best examples the social and technical aspects of the
project support each other, as in the Diagoon Houses, Delft (1971) by Herman
Hertzberger. The principle behind the houses is based on the idea of the ‘incomplete
building’, meaning that a basic frame leaves space for the personalised interpretation
of the user, i.e. number of rooms, positioning, functional uses. The occupants
themselves will be able to decide how to divide the space and live in it, where they
will sleep and where eat. If the composition of the family changes, the house can be
adjusted, and to a certain extent enlarged. The structural skeleton is a half-product
which everyone can complete according to his own needs. The interiors show a fine
balance between order and chaos, the architecture accepting but not getting
overwhelmed by the vicissitudes and changes of everyday life.

Diagoon Houses, Delft (1971) by Herman Hertzberger.View of interior.

Whilst most of the examples given have been at the scale of the individual apartment,
it is important to note that our approach to flexible housing can and should be applied
at all scales. At the scale of the whole building, soft use and/or technology will allow
both a variety of sizes in housing provision, as well as the potential for mixed use. At
the scale of the room, flexibility can be considered through both use and technology,
the former in the consideration of how a single room may be used for a variety of

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 FLEXIBLE HOUSING: THE MEANS TO THE END

purposes, the latter through the incorporation of flexible components. At whatever

scale, it is clear that the flexible housing can be achieved through a careful
consideration of use and technology and without significant, if any, additional cost; it
does not rely on an overt display of formal or technological gymnastics. In this, the
soft approach to flexible housing assumes a background role which, whilst not
necessarily according to the tendencies of progressive display that architecture often
adopts, weaves itself into the heart of social empowerment.

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