The right to one's home

Abstract: “The right to one’s home” is a project that raises the issue of affordable housing, challenging this broad concept both in universal terms and later applied to specific condition of a site located in Warsaw, Poland. Beside the obviously economic dimension, affordability stretches out to urban politics by proposing new power relations and redefining neoliberal cities of today. By reclaiming centrally located, infrastructurally connected and potentially attractive sites it is a tool to counteract gentrification. Within the thesis, affordability is achieved with both organizational and spatial strategies – meaning that architectural solutions are accompanied by a simple administrative model that introduces different actors (municipality, private investors, housing cooperatives, non-profit organisations). Seeing the opportunity of reducing building cost in prefabrication, three panel systems were designed and placed on the site. Deriving from the history of concrete panels and shifting to more sustainable material – cross laminated timber – the author tried to reach harmonious balance between quantity, quality and affordability. The proposal was not radicalized with micro-apartments nor was intended to save on architectural values – on the contrary, individual and careful design of the outer skin that covers structural core was an important goal of the project. Standardised architectural solutions and organizational strategies on the municipal level were combined to enable socially sustainable housing environment.