The integration of new social housing in existing urban schemes: the case of Cité Manifeste in Mulhouse, France

Abstract

With a shortage of affordable housing, social housing has become a priority on national agendas. However, designing social housing has a poor record, as reflected in the current demolition of post-war housing ‘utopias’. This paper seeks to explore how the design of new social housing could increase the resilience of urban areas and its social and spatial integration in the contextual urban fabric. It examines the twenty-first century social housing area of Cité Manifeste, designed by renowned architects as an extension of Cité Ouvrière, a nineteenth-century mass industrial housing scheme in the city of Mulhouse, France. The spatial and social performance of these two cités are investigated, focusing on the urban interface between the streets and houses, and its patterns of evolution. Both schemes are well embedded in the wider street network, and Cité Manifeste has integrated better into the old quarter spatially than socially, yet not all parts of the design perform similarly. The comparison of the two cités and their components provides insight into the impact of architectural and urban design on the viability of housing developments.