Responsive Social Housing

With the demise of social housing in the 80s and 90s and the reliance on market-provided housing, the issue of adaptable social housing design brought forward by the architects in the 60s and 70s was put on hold. However, the growing realization that current market modes are not meeting the needs for affordable housing has made it increasingly necessary to propose a new social housing model that reintroduces the theories of adaptability, modularity, and responsiveness while maintaining the elements of social housing that were deemed successful, such as an abundance of public space and social programs to support the lives of the residents living in these developments. How can future housing schemes be developed using soft and hard elements to allow for a higher degree of responsiveness throughout their lifetimes? And how would the units within such schemes be designed to allow for a high level of modularity between them? My thesis will tackle these design problems in the hopes of enriching the discussion regarding the future and evolution of responsive social housing.