Publication in archithese: “Failed architecture? Visions, images and social realities of large-scale housing construction”
The current issue of archithese on the subject of large housing estates contains an article on the “failure of architecture” in the megablocks of the 1960s and 1970s by Eveline Althaus, Marilena Prisco and Tino Schlinzig.
In recent decades, a core teme for architects has centered around the need for flexible living spaces rather than designs that rigidliy organize life. Living spaces that are not flexible and responsive to change canbe viewed as architectures that are prone to failure. Some see the architecture of physical spaces as respoonsible for this failure, while others see maintenance (or the lack of it), social segregation, or the composition of the resident population as key factorss in the "failure of housing" and its architecture.