Building up: creating new homes on top of refurbished post-war estates

Modern cities are constantly in need of new and better homes for their ever-growing populations. An obvious solution in many European and Russian cities is to demolish and replace their often vast, crumbling post-war prefabricated social housing estates with better, denser developments. But the high capital and social costs of doing so can be major barriers to cash-strapped local authorities. Research has been undertaken in Russia to investigate the technical and financial viability of allowing private developers to add additional storeys and infill sections to existing public estates. A design model of a standard five-storey Saint Petersburg estate was developed, showing how two-storey extensions could be added on top and new sections inserted in between to deliver more homes and improve existing ones at minimal public expense.