From Boring Boxes to Beautiful Cost-Effective Houses : A study about housing development and exterior architectural preferences

Sammanfattning: The last time Sweden did face a major housing shortage was during the 1960’s. As a solution to the housing shortage, The Million Homes Programme was initiated. The programme did manage to get rid of the housing shortage, but has received a lot of criticism concerning its architecture and environment since its completion. At the time for this study, Sweden is experiencing yet another housing crisis. In order to manage the housing shortage in a more successful way this time, it is important to not down-prioritise the exterior architecture. The exterior architecture plays an important role in creating both an aesthetical appealing and a social sustainable built environment. But the scarcity of housing makes it easy to sell the produced apartments, especially in the larger cities, which reduces the incentives for the developers to prioritise the aesthetics. There is an ongoing debate in Sweden concerning a dissatisfaction with the exterior architecture and there is an absence of research regarding the end-users preferences.  The identified problem that is addressed in this thesis concerns the down-prioritised aesthetics of the exterior architecture in multi-family residential areas in Sweden. The purpose with the study is to identify how housing developers can accomplish an exterior architectural design that is considered aesthetical attractive by its end-users. The study investigates preferences concerning exterior architecture, perceptions of the existing housing supply in Stockholm and how the housing developers can meet the identified preferences. A questionnaire was used as a method to identify peoples’ preferences and perceptions of four multifamily residential housing areas in Stockholm. Interviews were conducted with a housing developer to identify how housing developers can cost-effectively meet the preferences.  The majority of the housing supply, built in what is generally considered to represent a contemporary style, did not satisfy the identified preferences concerning exterior architecture. As the title of this report indicate, the questionnaire respondents considered contemporary areas in general to look more or less like identical boring boxes. It was only the supply built in traditional style that satisfied the identified preferences. That is, the studied housing supply does not meet the end-users demand fully satisfactory. However, the interviews revealed that housing developers can satisfy the identified preferences cost-effectively by accompanying some suggestions of improvements.