Equitable access to decent housing remains a major global challenge, particularly for lower-income populations reliant on subsidised, affordable homes. This is exacerbated by the continued commodification of housing, demographic change, and the increasing time many people now spend at home. Addressing these challenges requires, as this book argues, stronger state intervention, closer cooperation between housing regulators, providers, and occupants, and a more robust evidence base that links housing policy, supply, quality, and design, along with a shift towards more long-term social and environmental housing values.
This book examines how housing design governance and lived experience shape the quality of homes and the wellbeing of residents, analysing the political, economic, social, historical, and environmental drivers of design. Drawing on new and rich comparative data and evidence from England, Chile, China, the Netherlands, Spain, and Switzerland, it explores how contextual standards, cultural norms, and regulatory practices influence everyday life and perceptions of subsidised housing.
Combining historical, technical, and social perspectives through a comparative international lens, this interdisciplinary design research offers a multidimensional understanding of housing quality. It provides insights for policymakers, housing providers, and designers, demonstrating how design research and lived experience can inform standards and policies to create more inclusive, adaptable, and sustainable homes and neighbourhoods, with implications for contemporary housing practice.
Sam Jacoby is Professor of Architectural and Urban Design Research, Research Lead of the School of Architecture, and Director of both the Intergenerational Design Lab and the Laboratory for Design and Machine Learning at the Royal College of Art. His interdisciplinary work is focused on the social impact of design research, spatial strategies, and architecture.
Alvaro Arancibia is an architect trained at the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, with an MPhil in Urban Design and a PhD in Architectural Design from the Architectural Association in London. His work bridges practice and research, focusing on collective housing and urban design in Santiago, Chile. His doctoral thesis received the AA Graduate Prize for Research: Outstanding Work 2015–2016, and between 2022 and 2025 he was co-investigator of the project Housing Standardisation: The Architecture of Regulations and Design Standards. Through his practice, he has won several housing competitions organised by the Chilean Ministry of Housing, including the Mirador Laguna project, completed in 2024. His research and design work have been published internationally and presented at universities in Chile, the United Kingdom, the United States, and Mexico, contributing to debates on housing policy, standards, and typologies.
