This thesis explores the idea of complete communities and discusses how condominium development in downtown Toronto can be made more family friendly by focusing on the proposed ‘Official Plan Amendment to Encourage the Development of Units for Households with Children’ (OPA) that is currently before City Council. In order to address this issue, the study employed a detailed policy review of the current planning policies for the City of Toronto and an overview of the planning policies in the City of Vancouver, as well as in-depth interviews with key informants in the planning and development field and parents who have lived in or are currently living in a downtown condominium with at least one child. The findings indicate that there is a growing segment of the population choosing to live in downtown condominiums after having children and that housing and community policy must better address the needs of this population. The proposed OPA would require new high-rise condominium development in downtown Toronto to contain a minimum percentage of three bedroom units suitable for families. This policy would be a significant step towards meeting these needs and creating the desired complete communities; however, it is a contentious issue and there are requirements beyond bedroom counts that need to be addressed to create the supportive family-friendly infrastructure. From these findings, this thesis proposes recommendations and changes to the proposed OPA that would clarify and refine its intentions and implementation. As well, the concept of the family life cycle is reconsidered and an updated model of housing requirements based on the “condo family” is proposed. This research contributes to the literature on families living downtown, condominium living, and the family life cycle.

This thesis explores the idea of complete communities and discusses how condominium development in downtown Toronto can be made more family friendly by focusing on the proposed ‘Official Plan Amendment to Encourage the Development of Units for Households with Children’ (OPA) that is currently before City Council. In order to address this issue, the study employed a detailed policy review of the current planning policies for the City of Toronto and an overview of the planning policies in the City of Vancouver, as well as in-depth interviews with key informants in the planning and development field and parents who have lived in or are currently living in a downtown condominium with at least one child. The findings indicate that there is a growing segment of the population choosing to live in downtown condominiums after having children and that housing and community policy must better address the needs of this population. The proposed OPA would require new high-rise condominium development in downtown Toronto to contain a minimum percentage of three bedroom units suitable for families. This policy would be a significant step towards meeting these needs and creating the desired complete communities; however, it is a contentious issue and there are requirements beyond bedroom counts that need to be addressed to create the supportive family-friendly infrastructure. From these findings, this thesis proposes recommendations and changes to the proposed OPA that would clarify and refine its intentions and implementation. As well, the concept of the family life cycle is reconsidered and an updated model of housing requirements based on the “condo family” is proposed. This research contributes to the literature on families living downtown, condominium living, and the family life cycle.

Thesis (licenciatura en ciencias sociales)--Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 86-87).

The following research will respond to an active request for proposals to develop workforce housing in Terrebonne Parish, Louisiana to create one (1) multi-family rental housing development that services residents earning less than 80% of the Area Median Income. The proposed research will explore the feasibility of development in Terrebonne as well as determining financial structure, including tax incentives that would best utilize a $5.7 million dollar community development block grant funds allocated from hurricanes Ike and Gustav. The project is intended to be energy efficient, aesthetically pleasing and use universal design standards that aim at making the resulting multi-family community comparable and competitive with recently developed market rate apartments. / 0 / SPK / specialcollections@tulane.edu

Just north of Stockholm is a neighbourhood of wooden buildings, all of them a merge of three or four compact family homes placed carefully in the topography.This typology is challenging a housing stock dominated by the open plan. For several people living together, a sequence of smaller rooms, a raumplan, may instead be more functional, spatially varied, and flexible. The homes consist of rooms, niches, partitions, and lofts, separated by different materials and ceiling heights creating different ambiences, with some shared rooms to expand into or rent out. To further improve the spaces, I researched the movements dealing with making the most out of a smaller space, like minimalism and compact living, and used this to increase the feeling of space and the functionality. I hope the varied sequences of spaces give people the possibility of creating their own feeling of home.

The Building is a combination of a green house and multi familyhousing building. The building´s courtyard is transformed in to a winter garden and creates an climate controlled environment with exotic vegitation blooming all year around. The courtyard is working as an extra livingroom with nice public walks in different levels were people can relax, exercise and socialise. The heat generated from the winter garden can be reused and recycled in to the floor slabs. It can also be deposited into the ground under the garden creating a climate smart heating system. One important aspect when drawing the plans was to give all the apartments a private space inside the wintergarden. I created plans where the allocation of the garden is equal. the private space is located on the second floor in the duplex apartments but some apartments only consist of one level and some extra care went in to making a private space for them too. The winter garden not only allows people to watch the trees and plants it also gives them the possibility to grow there own food on the private balcony and  just outside the kitchen window. Having plants outside the kitchen blocks the view from people passing by on the public promenade. / Byggnaden är en kombination av ett växthus och ett flerbostadshus. Byggnadens innergår har ett glastak som som möjliggör ett controllerat climat med växter som blommar året runt. innergården fungerar som ett extra vardagsrum med trevliga promenader i olika nivåer där människor kan träna, socialisera eller bara slapna av och njuta naturen. Värmen som genereras av den inglasade gården kan återanvändas och pupmas in i bjälklagen och marken under gården vilket skapar ett klimatsmart uppvärmningssystem.  en viktig aspekt när jag ritade planerna var att ge alla lägenheter ett privat rum inne i gården. Jag skapade planer där anspråket av gården var så lika som möjligt. Det privata rummet är placerat på övervåningen i etage lägenheterna men några lägenheter har bara ett plan vilket ledde till några special lösningar för att skapa ett avgränsat rum för dem också. Den ingalsade gården erbjuder inte bara en vacker miljö med växter och träd, det finns även möjlighet att odla sia egna frukter och grönsaker på den privata balkongen samt utanför köksfönstret. Planteringen av högre växter utanför fönstret kan skydda insynen från grannar som går förbi på den publika prommenaden.

Little published research has examined the post-implementation outcomes of public private partnerships for housing, specifically the Military Privatized Housing Initiative (MPHI) from the perspective of the end user, the Military Family Housing (MFH) resident. Using Mettler and SoRelle's conceptualization of policy feedback theory as the foundation, the purpose of this repeated cross-sectional study was to assess residential satisfaction pre- and post- implementation of the MPHI. The study also addressed the influence of sociodemographic factors on MFH residents' perceived residential satisfaction. Secondary data were collected using 2 Department of Defense surveys administered pre- and post-implementation. An independent-samples t test was used to examine residential satisfaction before and after implementation of the MPHI. Multiple regression analysis was used to examine the influence of sociodemographic characteristics on residential satisfaction of MFH residents. Results indicated that privately-managed MFH residents were less satisfied than residents of government-managed MFH (p < .001). Results also showed that paygrade, branch of service, ethnicity/race, and having children or dependents in a household were significant determinants of residential satisfaction for government-managed MFH residents (p < .05). In privately-managed MFH, residents having children or dependents in the household was a significant determinant of residential satisfaction (p < .05). The positive social change implications stemming from this study include recommendations to policy makers to continue examination of MPHI outcomes and improve data collection consistency to ensure current housing policies are meeting the needs of military families.

The following report outlines a project that has been implemented as a degree of Bachelor of Science in Innovation and Design at the Faculty of Health, Science and Technology at the University of Karlstad.. The project is carried out in behalf of Flexit AB in Töcksfors. Flexit AS/AB has an ongoing project of heat and ventilation systems for family housing. The project covers the required development of a combi device for the installation. The combi device is installed on the facade and combines the handling of outdoor and exhaust air. The device is visible on the facade of the building, therefore the design of the device impacts on how customers agrees to it. The current device was not considered enough aesthetically pleasing to be accepted by customers. The objectives of the project was to enable sales of the company’s ongoing project of heat and ventilation systems for family housing. The work has been carried out according to the product development process where the combination of functionality and design has been the main focus to achieve the objectives of the project. Several concepts were created trough design methods. The concepts were compared to the specification of requirements and one final concept was chosen for further development. The result was five different solutions of a thinner device. All the solutions had the same basic design where the front steelplate varied. The solutions were presented in CAD constructions with renderings. The result also contains simulations of the designs. The designs were considered more attractive than the original product. The solution meets 21 of 28 requirements from the product specification.

Introducing concepts of Craftsman kit construction to the interior, as well as modern technology to lessen the cost of handcrafted details, opens the possibility to new methods of modular design in which interior units are configured around structural skeletons and central base points that provide supply lines to residential units. One example is Dutch design firm Minale-Maeda’s Keystones, a 3D printed connector that holds together any necessary components, like furniture. These keystones can be printed at home and save time and the need to obtain anything but essential components (website). The design firm works to create an “ongoing awareness of the possibilities of both mass-production and skilled craftsmanship” (L’arco Baleno, 2014). Another interesting example is Dutch design brand Fraaiheid’s Minimal Waste Table, which is created from one piece of laminated plywood with a CNC milling machine which makes for extremely minimal waste (Williamson, 2013). These examples of automation require a craftsman’s hand and mind to create the concept but introduce a modern approach to reducing waste, time and cost.

The history of housing in Sweden is a central part of our cultural history and for the collective understanding of ourselves. During the 20th century the Swedish state has played an active roll in the production of housing. But, since the 90s the housing question has been left to the market which struggles to produce the quantity of housing that is needed. While the housing that is built today comes with a lot of qualities, it is also ridden with problems. The floor plans are general, yet fixed, common spaces are under prioritized and the possibility to customize your apartment is low. Not to mention that we are moving towards a situation were also rental apartments are put on the free market which under the current situation, could lead to an increased segregation in the bigger cities. The ability to choose how your home should be configurated has become a luxury.   The situation has certain similarities with the speculative way of building of the late 19th century in Sweden. The answer then was to make it possible for workers, small farmers and officials to build their own homes with financial help from the state.   When neither the market nor the state can provide good enough housing for the citizens, it is time to, like before, explore how we can take the matter in our own hands. Today an answer could be joint building ventures. Friends, colleagues or like-minded can get together and build their own multifamily houses by planning, building and finally inhabit the buildings. It is today a tricky process, but experiences from Germany have showed that it can be a reliable way of providing housing when the idea gets more normative. Holmsund could be a good testing ground for joint building ventures. The settlement is expected to grow, there are free central plots and the settlement can provide enough service and commuting possibilities even for people more used to city life.   My system provides a frame, concrete slabs resting on steel columns with a wet core stabilizing the structure laterally. The users are then, in dialogue with the architect and the other residents negotiating the space after their needs and economical situation.