I have seen their social housing. And I want one too!
Well, we just update them: we enlarge the surface of the flats, we add balconies, terraces and galleries, we insulate them acoustically and thermally to make them more livable and sustainable…
It’s not little.
And we adapt habitability –number of rooms, distribution– to the changing needs of the tenant.
And now they enjoy more views and light.
They were often not used due to having small or poorly oriented windows: we have opened windows, attached galleries for plants, some tables and chairs to enjoy them…
With expensive, long and annoying works?
During all the improvement work we allow the residents to continue inhabiting it; We never demolish and we are very aware of the costs.
And then they don’t raise the rent?
In that we got very hard with the public administrations that own the buildings: in no case did we allow the monthly payment to be increased.
Here if you invest in improving your apartment, the owner can raise your rent.
Well, it’s unfair. And for those reasons, improving social housing –we never demolished it– is a task for architects as well as lawyers, politicians, urban planners…
Could you improve social housing in Spain as you have done in Paris?
Each building is a diverse challenge due to its proprietary structure, construction quality and age. And in Spain it is more difficult, because the owners are usually private and numerous and it is very difficult to get them all to agree to start reforms.
What have we done wrong here?
In France, after the war, the State began huge investments in social housing and always on a rental basis.
The Franco regime here concentrated on giving up property to create a middle class.
Spain opted for home ownership and, on the other hand, in France the owner of social apartments was the administration and thanks to that today it is easier to update them. Here it is not easy to get 50 owners to agree to update a building.
Can that model of yours for upgrading floors be applied everywhere?
More than a model, it is a point of view: if something breaks, I can repair it. If a building has difficulties, we will see what works and what does not and what is left over or missing. Never simply tear it down to erect another.
Can’t apply the same reform project to several buildings?
We have intervened in large areas of Paris, Bordeaux and Saint-Nazaire and each one has required different actions, because the climate, the environment and the residents themselves are also different.
Who pays you for these works?
We have always found solutions that did not go through making the rent more expensive, but through the intervention of banks with loans to public investors for 30 or 40 years, which are then paid with rent.
Give us an example.
In Paris, for example, we had a project to update 530 homes and the public owner requested a 30-year loan from private banks. The advantage, of course, is that there is only one owner.
Some critics deplore the quality of Soviet Spanish social housing.
I would never speak of anyone’s home like that. I prefer to refer to updating publicly owned private residences.
Your big project?
In Paris we studied 1,848 actions to create housing, offices, shops…
I imagine it is very complex.
It is easier to get public investment for the new than to reform the existing one, so we are going to sell and rent some properties to pay for the reform of all. Again, lawyers and politicians will be as important as the architect.
Do you make friends with the residents?
I fondly remember Mrs. Ramos from Bordeaux, who had a T3 (dining room and two bedrooms) and who followed all the work in detail until she enjoyed her new terrace with us. She was a master builder.
What part of your reform is most appreciated by tenants?
In Bordeaux, they love winter terraces and dining on them, and in Paris, on the other hand, they start by putting furniture on them.
What have you learned that you can teach us in these years?
That you don’t have to plan bricks and spaces, but activities and intentions: don’t think about rooms and square meters, but about how to eat outdoors, do gymnastics, sunbathe…
