intervention strategies for renovation of social housing estates

Laurentino38. Example of deprived social housing estates in Rome. Chapter 7
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CHAPTER 7
LAURENTINO38
EXAMPLE OF DEPRIVED SOCIAL HOUSING
ESTATES IN ROME
INTRODUCTION to this chapter
This chapter describes an example of large social housing estates in Rome. It will provide
information on a neighbourhood realized in the early 1970s which is representative for a part
of the deprived social housing stock in Rome. The name of this neighbourhood is Laurentino
38, also known as L38. The entire neighbourhood now faces similar problems to the ones
described in the Bijlmermeer.
The first part of this chapter, section 7.1 provides a general overview of the neighbourhood
by describing its physical characteristics, the main issues in its historical background and the
major current problems. The second section describes recent (restructuring and ‘renovation’)
developments at the urban and building level, and opinions of people on these actions that
were undertaken to improve the quality of the area. Finally, a description of how
improvements were usually implemented is provided, along with conclusions at the end of
the chapter.
7.1 GET TO KNOW LAURENTINO 38
INTRODUCTION
The social housing stock in Rome is managed by the housing association ATER Roma. Ater
owns a large and much diversified housing stock. In Rome, ATER manages about 55.000
dwellings and other proprieties like commercial rooms and land (see Chapter 3). The
numerous residential neighbourhoods differ in terms of age, location, urban layout, building
types and constructive technologies. Section 7.1.3 briefly introduces the context in which
they were implemented. The case of Laurentino 38 will be used to illustrate and discuss the
physical measures derived from Dutch projects to address their weakness and strengths for
implementation in the practice of Roma. Since it is not possible to choose a single case
representing the majority of social housing in Rome, it was decided to use an example of
large social housing estates comparable with the Bijlmermeer. In this way, this study
provides a framework of physical measures for renovation directed to the building envelope
to support decision making of housing association and other parties, and draw directions for
the improvement of the intervention strategy of ATER Roma (Chapter 1, section 1.2.2).
Not in order of importance, the following criteria were used in case selection:
Size: large number of households (about 30.000 low-income people) living in similar large
housing estates.
Technology: rigid bearing structure like a tunnel. This choice is based on a sort of ‘worst
scenario’. If physical measure might improve the quality of buildings realized with rigid
bearing structure, they would consequently work in cases with more flexible structures like
concrete frame (pillars and beams)..Indeed, the tunnel technology was very common in
large housing developments in Northern European countries. It is still in use for
construction of blocks with more than 250 dwellings (Andeweg, 2007) 1
1 For examples of housing currently realized by using the tunnel technology see www.outinord.fr (visited in January
1. G