HOUSING AS THE BASE FOR THE CREATION OF COMMUNITIES. Diagnosis of citizen participation in social housing projects in Quito

Abstract

Social housing is developed without considering the user, his needs and even the place where it is implanted, specially, if we consider that a typological pattern is repeated and implanted everywhere. The most common problem is to acquire low-cost housing and that meets the standards of spatial comfort and not with the minimum dimensions. The following research proposes to analyze the degree of citizen participation of several social housing projects in Quito implemented in the last decades and to determine how right or wrong were the projections and expectations raised by the planners. For this purpose, a combined methodology was adapted, based on the comparison of physical and functional characteristics between the different projects and supported by the analysis Livingston’s literature review, participatory action, community participation, and collaborative housing, etc. The results show the importance of user participation and how this interaction can generate not only housing solutions but communities.

Keywords: Citizen participation, social housing, sense of community, Quito.