Housing Designed by Developers : The Weak Role of the Architect and the Forgotten Users

Sammanfattning: The Swedish housing sector has changed from being part of the welfare state into being market-driven. During the last century political decisions has enabled this change together with changes regarding the actors involved in the building industry. The role of the architect has weakened and users are not involved in the process of designing housing at all. I propose an alternative estate agency called Bricolage where the users are involved in the design process of their homes from start to finish. Bricolage would not find you the home of your dreams but instead build it together with you. The process started with interviews with the users where functions, materials, style, common spaces, light and atmosphere were discussed. The interview resulted in a written document and a storyboard that worked as a stepping stone to build the first model of the apartment. After that a second interview was held with each family to discuss the models and storyboards. Together with the family small changes were made in the model. When the separate models were finished I assembled them, making an apartment block of eight apartments. I presented the apartment block model at an event receiving very positive feedback from the user group with many of them eager to move in. Designing housing with the architect in a driving role and with a high user involvement the future design of housing can be of much higher architectural quality. The large scale industry of housing is difficult to change but small architect originated practices such as Bricolage can be a good way to take charge over the design process. A practice like Bricolage can have a close contact with the users, conduct personal interviews and really get to the core of what a family needs and want from their home. The transparent design process ensures the user that they pay for what they requested. For the architectural profession it can be a way to strengthen our role in the housing sector.