Paper short abstract:

The proposed paper will present the current research of a multidisciplinary team from ISCTE-IUL that is collectively working on an integrated design tool to generate humanized urban and self-built tailored incremental housing based.

Paper long abstract:

In recent years the governments of the Portuguese-speaking of Africa have sought to address the housing needs by launching state programs to encourage construction. Angola has launched the National Housing Construction Program. The aim is to build about 1 million houses for low-income population in each country. Large massive housing blocks have been constructed offering identical typological dwelling types that does not suit the needs of the population neither the characteristics of the site or the local lifestyle. This inequality between rigid and repetitive housings and the need to answer different situations including time variables is one of the most complex challenges in nowadays architecture. It is necessary to define more efficient ones based on the implementation of sustainable housing units at all levels - ecological, social, cultural and economic. Several approaches have been done to support an alternative to mass housing production: (1) "support's system" from SAR leaded by John Habraken (1972); and (2) integrated planning support system for low-income housing in Chile by Dirk Donath and Luis González (2006). The act of housing production is understood as a process instead of a static end product.

In order to integrate these concepts in the design planning system tool we proposed a methodology for approaching both the urban design and housing design that explores parametric generative system and digital fabrication to deliver a system of alternative solutions instead of the usual unique and definitive solution. The system has been conceived to generate proposals for low-cost incremental tailored housing, according to procedures used in the studied countries.