‘Andalucía Inmobiliaria’ publishes an article by José María de Cárdenas on industrialisation and affordable housing
The specialist magazine ‘Andalucía Inmobiliaria’ has published an extensive article by José María de Cárdenas, architect and founding partner of EDDEA, in which he considers the opportunities that industrialised construction offers for building a stock of subsidised housing that matches today’s demand, and sets out a series of measures to make Andalusia a pioneering region in the field.
Under the title ‘Industrialisation and affordable housing: Andalusia’s opportunity’, De Cárdenas recalls that one of the “serious consequences” of the 2008 global crisis for the property market was a paradigm shift in how this type of housing is developed. “In 2021, 9,567 homes were designated as subsidised across Spain, compared with 58,308 in 2011, a fall of 81%; figures that contrast with the recovery of market-rate housing since 2017,” he notes.
Thirty years ago up to a third of all homes in the country were subsidised; today they account for less than 10%, a figure that falls far short of “runaway demand” and means that many people “are still unable to rent or buy a home because they lack the minimum resources, while many of those who do manage it bear a very high cost-to-income ratio that prevents them from developing socially as they should,” the architect adds.
Among the factors behind this situation he lists construction prices, access to finance, red tape, the absence of urban planning and the lack of public–private collaboration, and he describes how the issue has been tackled in earlier periods, both in Spain and in other countries near and far.
José María de Cárdenas explains that throughout the last century the provision of affordable housing was a matter ‘of State’, which made it possible “to provide, with greater or lesser success, a minimum home for the citizens most in need”. “These national operations,” he continues, “were generally tied to a drive for industrialisation that applied innovation, and so entire neighbourhoods were built on a massive scale with controlled costs and timescales.”
European models
“In Spain this was articulated through a variety of instruments and plans, much as in other European countries such as France, where industrialisation went much further, reaching high levels of prefabrication to very demanding standards. In Scandinavia, to take another example, regions with populations similar to Andalusia’s today built a million homes in 15 years, with a quality that is still surprising,” he points out.
In his view, these strategies did not merely aim to give every family a decent home: those in charge “were able to understand that it could also be an instrument of social and economic progress and a structural element of urban growth”. “The model,” he notes, “may have had its flaws, especially when viewed with today’s knowledge, but none that cannot be corrected now, as is in fact happening in the refurbishment of many of these areas.”
Building on this background, the EDDEA partner argues that meeting today’s affordable housing challenge requires a firm commitment to industrialisation in residential construction. “The positive impacts are well known: greater efficiency through standardised procedures, shorter design and construction times, better final quality and lower costs, while still advancing safety and sustainability,” he says.
An opportunity for Andalusia
José María de Cárdenas advocates applying this approach in Andalusia, given the very high demand for this type of home. “If, from the outset, we could also achieve effective public–private collaboration, broad-minded enough to identify other regional challenges in social, economic and environmental terms and to propose integrated solutions, we would be closer to reviving the construction of affordable housing in our region,” he states.
To that end, his article proposes a first phase of implementation focused on innovation, reviewing the brief for these homes and the construction processes until arriving at a modular platform specific to Andalusia, adapted to its climate, topography and other conditions.
The second phase, he explains, would consist of drawing up a plan with all the stakeholders involved: the regional government (Junta de Andalucía), town councils, business and financial institutions. This would require a plan setting out objectives, scope, timeframe, methodology, energy resources, infrastructure and the investment needed, as well as defining the geographical areas of intervention and a set of pilot projects selected according to measurable criteria.
The third and final phase would involve putting in place a supply chain capable of providing the components of the homes, partly made in the workshop and partly on site. “At this stage, which would run in parallel with the launch of the pilot projects, it will be necessary to address the professional reskilling of these industries and to equip them with facilities, equipment and logistics solutions,” he indicates.
De Cárdenas concludes that “these brushstrokes are intended to contribute to a debate that could make Andalusia a pioneering region in housing policy, offering quality homes for a more inclusive society and addressing strategic territorial issues such as reindustrialisation and the social and urban integration of our cities”.