Pathological Architecture & Micro Flats: A New Phenomenon
Housing is undoubtedly the biggest topic, as well as the biggest issue, in Polish city planning and architecture. The situation already needed an intervention a couple of years ago – the increasing perversity in this field is proceeding swiftly. Today, instead of residential architecture, there is talk of investment products.
Ada Colau, an activist and tenancy rights campaigner who was elected mayor of Barcelona in 2015 was the first to bring this up. Back during her election campaign, Colau started to speak loudly about how degenerated the housing market had become in her city, one of the most visited in Europe. Shortly after announcing her position, she started to work towards changing the situation by limiting the sale of flats to big corporations and regulating short-term house rental. The extreme commercialisation of tourism in Barcelona had made the city almost uninhabitable. Businesses had started to adapt to the needs of millions of tourists. Ordinary shops and points of service disappeared and flats were changed into short-term accommodation for rent. This process had been happening for years and now most apartments in the city centre have been bought by corporations specialising in mass real estate, making prices soar to levels no ordinary person can afford.
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Barcelona from above, photo: Manel Subirats/Getty Images
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Similar processes started taking place in other European cities as well. A spectacular example of how tourism can ‘kill’ a city is Venice where everyday urban life ceased a long time ago since everything has been subjected to crowds of visitors. In the case of this picturesque lagoon city, the problem is even more grave; tourists are literally stomping it to death, making the antique areas, uniquely located and traversed by canals, degrade faster and faster.
A product of great value
Not everything is the fault of tourists however. A common problem of the Western world is the commercialisation and privatisation of phenomena that should not be subdued to market processes. The massive rise in the prices of flats in Paris, London, Berlin and Amsterdam is the effect of big companies taking over multiple properties and dealing with them like easy profit products. In September 2021, a referendum took place in Berlin. Inhabitants voted to expropriate some of the companies that owned the biggest parcels of property (containing a couple or even a dozen thousand flats). From January 2022, everyone buying a flat in Rotterdam will be obliged to live in it. All that so housing stops being an investment product.
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A street in Knightsbridge, London, phtoto: VV Shots/Getty Images
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In fancy boroughs of London, it’s very easy to find empty buildings; every flat in these posh houses has an owner yet they weren’t bought to be lived in. It does not serve its purpose, but is merely a capital investment. Not many people realise how destructive for a city and for the economy this is. There are whole streets full of luxurious but empty houses, which, in turn, make property prices soar dramatically. It’s estimated that in the UK capital there are around 20,000 such properties while rent prices rise up to record-setting levels, impossible to afford for most Londoners. Interestingly enough, Brexit did not change that, although prices were expected to drop. An even brighter example is China which swiftly follows the West. Many of these market processes happen faster and on a larger scale there. It’s estimated that there are somewhere between 65 and 100 million empty flats, bought purely for investment in the so-called Middle Kingdom. In Germany, the law allows for the expropriation of owners of empty flats, as it’s considered a waste of resources. However, many countries around the world continue to struggle with the problem of ‘disappearing’ flats which become an investment product.
Although many of these issues are common for the West, every country has a specific problem with housing and Poland is no exception. The year 2021 was definitely a time of such issues. The anomalies tormenting this field are more and more apparent. Experts estimate that Poland lacks 2.2 million flats. The amount of flats put into operation is bigger each year – in 2021, it was 220,000. But the number of people who do not own one, who simply cannot afford to buy one, keeps increasing. According to 2018 data, 45.1% of Poles between 25 and 34 years old (2.2 million people) lived with their parents. Two years later, there were almost 200,000 more of them. That’s not the only indicator rising. Year after year, there are more cash transactions on the market; almost 70 % of apartments are bought with cash.
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Wilanów from above, Warsaw, photo: Maciek Jaźwiecki/AW
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The National Bank of Poland. which analyses such phenomena, reports that over 60% of flats bought with cash is for rental or trade, therefore an investment product. This creates a spiral: prices go up while the group of people who can afford to buy a flat to live in gets smaller. Poland is also a playground for big funds that specialise in mass flat-buying; international corporations buy whole blocks of flats and parts of neighbourhoods right away. In 2021, many developers boasted about such transactions, for example, a sale of a building with 300 premises or a whole quarter with 650 flats ending up in the hands of international funds. Theoretically, one could say there’s nothing wrong with that – these apartments do end up on the market and anyone can rent them. However, concentrating a great part of housing in the hands of profit-oriented companies leads straight to increased prices, profiteering, and artificially influencing supply and demand. This is what Berliners have been fighting against for years now.
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Avia estate in Kraków, photo: Jakub Włodek/AW
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This shift in thinking about housing has led to various anomalies observed for years. Nobody bats an eye at extremely crowded neighbourhoods where houses stand a few metres apart and with public spaces, like playgrounds, that cover the surface of a single parking space. In 2021, we saw a curious phenomenon bloom. Not only did it get its own name quickly, it also degenerated extremely and rapidly. So-called patodeweloperka (patho-development) is actually an umbrella term for multiple phenomena. We’ve seen numerous ‘attractions’ delivered by estate developers, for example, flats with a single window or with a corridor taking up half of the premises with a bedroom at the other end of the stairway. It’s also hard not to mention places proudly called ’micro-apartments’. Even though the word ‘apartment’ still connotes luxury, in the Polish housing construction business it more and more often means a substandard place. The regulations are clear: a flat has to be at least 25 square metres. Yet, there are no obstacles to offer places that are much smaller, all you need is to give them a different label. That’s how these micro-flats were born, also known as commercial properties or investment products. Again, we pretty quickly accepted companies mass building and selling cubicles measuring several square metres. There was one infamous offer for a ‘innovative studio flat’ where, due to the limited space, the sleeping area was in a wardrobe. At the end of 2021, the media were buzzing about an estate developer’s offer for a flat in Koszalin with a total space of… two and a half square metres. In awe that the ‘property' had a mezzanine with a place to sleep, it seemed we had reached rock bottom when it comes to the degeneration of the housing market.
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Osiedle Generałów, Olsztyn, photo: Wojciech Wójcik/Forum
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In every spot where different kinds of anomalies in housing were noticed, it became apparent that the solution is to introduce greater regulations, increase state control, and bring housing back from the profit-driven world of commerce to the sphere of public issues. It’s not easy and certainly impossible to achieve in a short space of time. It’s even more difficult in Poland, where the construction of public social housing by the government or local authorities, became virtually obsolete after 1989. There are no solutions for those who cannot afford to buy or rent a house on the free market. None of the housing initiatives introduced in the last dozen years, which were supposed to make getting a roof over one’s head easier, have worked properly, also due to the fact that the majority of the production of residential developments is in the hands of private entrepreneurs. One might think there’s no taking residential housing back from the big developers – that’s why there’s been a grand comeback in building single-family houses. After 1989, Poles started building them with great passion as it became easier and more accessible (under the communist regime, it was relatively difficult to build a private house). Today, a house of one’s own is supposed to be a way of avoiding the pathologies of the housing market in the cities.
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2,5-metre studio flat in Koszlin in the "100-Sio Tower One" building, photo: press release of the 100-SIO Synergia investor
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Although the Izba Architektów RP (Polish Association of Architects, trans. KZ) gave a negative opinion on the results of the contest for a universal detached house design measuring up to 70 square metres, which will be possible to build without the existing bureaucracy (for example, applying for a construction permit), a catalogue of ready-made house designs accessible to everyone for the symbolic price of 1 PLN is in the works. Also in 2021, a series of contests took place to design modern detached houses in keeping with the architecture of a given region. The Twój dom – dialog z tradycją (Your house – a dialogue with tradition) initiative organised by the Narodowy Instytut Dziedzictwa (National Heritage Institute) is searching for a liable, reusable design of a house that will become part of the traditional cultural landscape of a region’s countryside. A few Polish regions are involved, including Silesia, Podlasie, and Warmia and Masuria. Simplifying certain procedures to make building one’s own house easier, ensuring that these buildings correspond with the landscape and are respectful towards local traditions – these are all grand ideas. They cannot, however, be the only solution to the issues Polish housing is dealing with. It’s not feasible that everyone unable to afford a flat will be able to build a detached private house. We also already know that sporadic buildings, urban sprawl and insufficient public transport are very negative phenomena, especially in the face of climate change.
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Microflats by Warszawska Street in Lublin, photo: https://warszawska96.pl
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Over the last two decades, we became used to the fact that when speaking about the newest architecture we focus on beautiful stylish shapes, the modern sites of cultural institutions. We list buildings nominated for international competitions. We appreciate contemporary office buildings and neighourhoods but also smaller, and by all means necessary, places like libraries and local community centres. These are all interesting and important themes but we cannot accept the architecture debate limiting itself to impressive buildings, as it is equally connected to the space of our everyday lives. Architectural design is closely linked to where and how we live and has a huge impact on our lifestyles. We should know and understand its processes and changes to at least have a chance to react when they are heading the wrong way.
Originally written in Polish, translated by KZ, Dec 2021