CONSTRUCTION OF NEW SOCIAL HOUSING UNITS FOR REFUGEES AND OTHER VULNERABLE HOUSEHOLDS in:

CACAK

The establishment of the Municipal Housing Agency in Čačak in 2005 was followed by the construction of 76 social housing units. Construction started in December 2006 and all works were finished in May 2008. The apartments are arranged in ten semi-detached buildings, located near the right bank of the Južna Morava river in the Košutnjak neighbourhood. The ten new buildings have their own quirky charm but the architects also managed to integrate the new buildings into the existing ambience of family houses and the natural environment. “The fact that the buildings are not high-rises makes us feel like full citizens, not refugees. I understand now that I am welcome in the city,” said a lady who had arrived from Bosnia some ten years ago.

KRAGUJEVAC

Kragujevac was the place where “things” started. This had to do not so much with starting construction but with a certain “openness of mind”. The City Housing Agency (CHA) was the first to carry out an architectural design competition, in June 2005, and began the construction of social housing units during the snowy March of 2006. When the first excavations were undertaken a big challenge appeared in the form of several unexploded bombs from the Second World War. After 3 months of terrain cleaning, the construction of three buildings with 96 apartments began in Blok Avala in the Aerodrom neighbourhood. 76 apartments were financed through the SIRP Programme, and the Kragujevac CHA financed the construction of 20 units. “Today, the three buildings with their pronounced colouring represent an important visual and architectural landmark in this part of the city,” said the chief architect of Kragujevac when the buildings were handed over.

KRALJEVO

The Housing Agency in Kraljevo was formed in late 2006 by the transformation of the Public Housing Management Company. The late establishment of the MHA postponed the start of construction. The architectural competition, project development and selection of beneficiaries ran parallel with the enterprise transformation during 2005 and 2006, and construction works started only in mid March 2007. In contrast to the preceding delay, the construction itself was performed on time and all works were finished in the summer of 2008. All 76 housing units are organized in three buildings located in the Beranovac neighbourhood. Particular qualities of these buildings are the apartments with small gardens on the ground floor level. The project was based on the awarded entry of a group of students, who developed it further in cooperation with the architects from the housing agency of the Province of Trento I.T.E.A. Istituto Trentino per l’Edilizia Abitativa from Italy. “The most beautiful thing is that our children can now play outside and that they can also gather their friends in our own garden,” a young mother from a ground floor flat told us.

NIS

The City Housing Agency in Niš was founded in 2003 during SIRP’s preparatory phase and began the construction of public rental housing within SIRP in 2006. The apartment building was constructed in the Pasi Poljana neighbourhood – a new residential area of Niš that has gradually developed over the past two decades. The 75 social housing units have been incorporated into a single building with five separate entrances. The same concept was also consistently carried out in the design of the public spaces on the location, on both the street and courtyard parts of the lot.  “We intended to design a block with the proportions and dimensions of classical housing blocks that you could see in many Niš neighbourhoods. It is a type of contra-punctum intended to organize the harmonization of the Pasi Poljana area,” said the architect who won the right to design the new flats at the open architectural competition. “I am proud that I was awarded in my native city.”

PANCEVO

The last Municipal Housing Agency was founded in Pančevo in 2006, but it was the first agency that officially handed over the keys to social housing beneficiaries, in January 2008. All 76 housing units were constructed within one compact building with three separate entrances, located in the Strelište settlement, a residential zone of Pančevo. The apartments are characterised by spatial flexibility and designed to fit the needs of the future beneficiaries. The building’s simple form ensures good lighting in the apartments, common corridors and staircases, as well as their easier maintenance. The MHA recognized SIRP as a chance to become a positive force in the need for economical and affordable housing in Pančevo and, parallel with this, the MHA organized two other social housing constructions on the same location.

STARA PAZOVA

Stara Pazova was the smallest participating Municipality in terms of area and population, and SIRP implemented activities related only to the housing component. The SIRP activities were carried out by the Public Company “Gea-plan”, within which a Housing Department was formed in 2005. The buildings were constructed according to the prize-winning design of a group of senior students of architecture. The 76 housing units were built in the Banovci-Dunav neighbourhood near the Danube river and in the vicinity of an elementary school and a kindergarten. The apartments are located in two buildings arranged so as to form the main motif of the public space – a small amphitheatre. Since the two new buildings are surrounded with family houses mainly inhabited by refugees, this public space was envisaged as a gathering place for the new neighbours. “Today, several months after moving in, this open space has become a kind of public meeting place for the wider area. People from neighbouring houses come here in the afternoon and spend their time with families from our buildings. Now we are in the centre and not at the margin as we have been in the past,” said an old man from the first floor.

VALJEVO

The project in Valjevo is distinct from the other Municipalities in terms of a different distribution of housing units. Namely, Valjevo decided to build its 76 housing units on three different sites characterized by different urban features. 24 apartments were built in the Sreten Dudić settlement – a typical urban open residential area. 11 apartments were built in Novo Naselje, a particular suburban setting, and 41 apartments were built in Peti Puk, a settlement characterized by residential buildings. The construction of the first 35 housing units started in 2006, and the keys were handed over to the beneficiaries in May 2008. The authors of these two buildings received the Grand Prix for 2008 at the 30th Salon of Architecture organized by the Museum of Applied Art. The construction of the third building and the remaining 41 housing units started in November 2007. “This approach of distributing apartments over three different locations had it own challenges. It was a complex task to manage the whole project, but it also gave us the advantage of a lower concentration of social housing units per site and, thus, easier integration for the newcomers as well as an added variety of architectural forms for the city,” said the director of the MHA.