MARJAN SARAB ARCHITECTURE

Starter Housing

Various Locations

2011

 

Starters on the housing market are in general young and ambitious, but financially rather weak.  The crucial theme of housing design for this target group therefore is scarcity. They can’t have it all. Nonetheless residential projects for starters show a huge variety in their appearance.

 

The main goal of the seminar was to investigate how architects deal with the complicated puzzle

of preferences and priorities among all those parameters that in the end add up to the all-in construction costs. Eighteen projects have been chosen to illustrate the links between the mix of

decisions, requirements and approaches, and the variety in the resulting designs.

 

In order to visualize such a complex overview a set of logos and pictograms has been developed

facilitating the comparison of otherwise very distinctive projects, each showing their specific mix of ‘unique selling points’. The results were presented in a leaflet-like layout per project referring to the compact visual culture of real-estate agencies.

 

Eighteen projects are hardly enough to get a complete or even an appropriate perspective

on starters housing. More elaborate research is recommended, but this makes a wonderful

starting point.

The characteristics of a starter in these days will be completely different as they used to be. This is a

result of the changes in the currency over time, as well as the economy of the housing market. At first being a starter will mean that you should not have entered the housing-market earlier in your life so it will be the first time you will start living your own or change between renting your home into buying one. Secondly there is a maximum amount of financial capital a starter may not exceed, which changes every year. At the moment that lies somewhere around the €20.000,-.

 

According to Wegwijs Kenniscentrum which based their numbers on the information given by the Dutch cadastre, the starter market actually lowers year by year. In 2009 there were still 2.173 houses being sold to starters till an age of 25, but in 2011 only 1.692 starter houses were sold, which is a decrease of 22% compared to the year 2009.

 

This indicates that the measures and the financial cuts by the government against the economic crisis and the economic crisis itself, which started in October 2008, has its influence on the housing market including starters. Designing and developing new houses which will be attractive for starters, might regain their interest into the housing market. After researching different types of starter houses there will be an overall conclusion, which will indicate which properties starters houses will have to contain and what starters seek, when buying a new house. Is that Price, volume, collective space, location e.g.

“What does a starter really want?”

 

The book can be read with the link below: