HoCo

Density Housing Construction & Costs

The new volume published by a+t, which will be on sale on 29 June, forms part of the Density
series, dedicated to the analysis of collective housing. HoCo is noted for including
construction systems within the field of study and comparison, besides the costs of each
project.
Comparative analysis of 32 collective housing projects
Dwelling density
Residential density
Floor Area Ratio
Developer type
Users
Uses
Floor plans
Housing types
Facade systems
Roof systems
Sustainability strategies
Costs per square meter of gross floor area
Characteristics:
HoCo
Density Housing Construction & Costs
Density Series
Aurora Fernndez Per, Javier Mozas, Javier Arpa
Soft cover (23,5 x 17cm): 464 Pages
English/Spanish
ISBN: 978-84-613-3080-5
Price: 45euro
Proyects:
ADAMO-FAIDEN ARQUITECTOS
Buenos Aires. Argentina. 2008
AGUINAGA Y ASOCIADOS ARQUITECTOS
Madrid. Espaa. 2008
ALLFORD HALL MONAGHAN MORRIS
London. United Kingdom. 2007
ANA ARCHITECTEN
Amsterdam. Netherlands. 2007
ARONS EN GELAUFF ARCHITECTEN
Groningen. Netherlands. 2007
ATELIER KEMPE THILL
Amsterdam. Netherlands. 2007
AVA ARCHITECTS
Porto. Portugal. 2008
BECKMANN - NTHP ARCHITECTES
Paris. France. 2007

BEVK PEROVIC ARHITEKTI

Ljubljana. Slovenia. 2006
BEVK PEROVIC ARHITEKTI
Maribor. Slovenia. 2007
BIG+JDS
Copenhagen. Denmark. 2008
COLL-LECLERC ARQUITECTOS
Lleida. Espaa. 2008
DOSMASUNO ARQUITECTOS
Madrid. Espaa. 2006
dRMM ARCHITECTS
London. United Kingdom. 2006
EDOUARD FRANOIS
Paris. France. 2008
EMMANUEL COMBAREL DOMINIQUE MARREC ARCHITECTES
Paris. France. 2006
FOREIGN OFFICE ARCHITECTS
Madrid. Espaa. 2007
FREI ARCHITEKTEN
Rohr. Switzerland. 2007
GIGON / GUYER
Zurich. Switzerland. 2007
HAMONIC + MASSON
Paris. France. 2008
HVDN ARCHITECTEN
Amsterdam. Netherlands. 2008
KASPER DANIELSEN ARCHITECTS / FUTURE SYSTEMS
Copenhagen. Denmark. 2008
KOKO ARCHITEKTID
Tallinn. Stonia. 2007
LEHMANN FIDANZA & ASSOCIS
Fribourgh. Switzerland. 2009
LPEZ-RIVERA ARQUITECTOS
Barcelona. Espaa. 2007
MVRDV, BLANCA LLE
Madrid. Espaa. 2009
OFFICE dA, BURT HILL
Boston. United States. 2007
OFIS ARHITEKTI
Cerklje. Slovenia. 2007

ONION FLATS
Philadelphia. United States. 2009
POOLEN ARCHITEKTEN
Culemborg. Netherlands. 2008
ROLDN + BERENGU
Barcelona. Espaa. 2009
URBANUS ARCHITECTURE & DESIGN
Guangzhou. China. 2008
HoCo. Aurora Fernndez Per
Lets choose housing as the essential object of the city
Lets have a look at the place wheres its implemented (urban extensions, downtowns,
outskirts...)
Lets check the occupancy data of the territory in which it is located (number of inhabitants,
density...)
Lets check the insertion into the urban grid (plot occupancy, planning permission, number of
dwellings...)
Lets find out whos doing the development (private initiative, public, mixed...)
Who are the users? (the young, the elderly, anyone...)
With a bit of luck there might be other uses in the project (businesses, offices, facilities...)
Lets ask the authors nicely to let us know the build cost per m2.
Lets adapt the cost to the purchasing power of the country where its located. This is
inevitable if we want to compare on equal footing
Once inside, lets see how the common spaces are distributed.
Lets find out how many dwelling sizes there are in each project (1, 2, 3 or more
bedrooms....)
Lets have a snoop around the building sections (1:50).
Lets rake through the details (1:20).
Lets look at how the materials appear in the facade and on the roof.
Lets analyze the layers of the envelope with a simple colour code.
Lets ask the authors which sustainable strategies theyve used (sometimes they reply,
sometimes...)
Lets add a good collection of photos.
Lets do this 32 times and compare.
Finally, lets add some thoughts and findings
This is, more or less, what we call HoCo
HoCo Costs
HoCo, the new volume published by a+t in the Density series is not a good practise manual,
but is a review and comparison of real cases.
The authors of each project provide the build cost per square metre and it is this data which
orders the book, from low to high.
In order to put them in order we have converted the local currency provided to us by the
authors into international dollars, which is the hypothetical currency unit which expresses the
Purchasing Power Parity (PPP) between countries, updated yearly by the International
Monetary Fund.
In each project we establish the relation between the local currency and the International
dollar based on the nominal per capita Gross Domestic Product of each country, in US dollars
and in International dollars (PPP), provided by the IMF. For instance, the calculations we have
applied to a project built in Buenos Aires are the following:
Nominal per capita GDP of Argentina: 8,146 USD (imf.org 2008)
GDP in values of purchasing power parity (PPP) of Argentina: 14,376 $PPP (imf.org, 2008)
From which we can infer that 1USD in Argentina is the equivalent of 1.76 $PPP, that is goods
costing 1USD in the USA would cost 1.76USD in Argentina.

Hence, the project implemented in Argentina, with a construction cost of 3,071 ARS/m2 is
equal to 878 USD, which translated to International dollars becomes 1,547$ PPP, which is the
value set out in the Costs index.
HoCo Roofs
The analysis of building solutions is one of the main contents of HoCo, the new volume
published by a+t in the Density series.
Housing is a very fitting field for experimentation to try out proposals for the envelope,
always playing with budget constraints and local regulation constraints. We wanted to
compare all the projects by applying a simple colour coding, such that all the layers forming
the envelope can be identified in each and every one of them. In the case of roofing we have
also included garden terraces. The most remarkable aspect is the ever-increasing
incorporation of vegetation into the fifth faade, not only as a sustainable strategy, but also
as a space for common use.
HoCo facades
The projects included in HoCo, the new book on housing edited by a+t within the Density
series and it focuses on the construction solutions adopted. Some of the faade solutions
standing out are:
Specific processes like aliphatic polyurethane coatings or concrete colouring in order to
obtain glazes and non homogeneous colours.
Superficial coatings with metallic colours, such golden paint or bright silver iridescent
renderings.
Products derived from cement, such us coloured fibre cement boards and composite resin
panels are a major faade cladding system. Besides, they are used for roof cladding, instead
of ceramic and slate tiles. Their formalization ranges from undulated to flat boards, and they
have become a medium-tech alternative to the traditional brick revetment.
Steel or aluminium plates range from stretched to corrugated, flat or bent. They are
commonly used due their low price, easy installation and durability.
Prefabricated elements include some concrete slabs of the exterior entrance galleries and
steel bathroom pods, which are built off site and mounted on site. Industrialised fabrication
systems also include curved concrete panels, coloured with marble powder and reinforced
with glass fibre. They are made-up out of a limited number of moulds
Structural insulated panels are often used as an alternative to brick or concrete block walls.
They consist of a core of molded expanded polystyrene (EPS) insulation with engineered
oriented strand board (OSB) laminated to the top and bottom faces.
The traditional mortar rendering of walls has evolved to one-coat plasters or mortars applied
over external wall insulation systems
HoCo Density
Land occupancy and the construction of the compact city continue to be the basis of the
Density series, which is now being extended with HoCo, the new volume on Housing,
published by a+t. This time we have tried to better understand the context of each
intervention through wide aerial views of the surroundings. The variety of sites, from small
nuclei of population to consolidated urban centres, taking in city extensions and recovered
urban voids, is enriched by the different lifestyles still observed in the 12 countries that have
been included.
We add the type of promotion, the type of use and the type of user as essential factors in
order to understand a project, along with the cost.
As far as densities are concerned, the range oscillates from that of 57 dwellings per hectare
of a project located in a small Swiss town to those of over 500 dwellings per hectare reached

by projects located in cities as dense as Barcelona or Paris. The density data of each project
refers to the net plot densities.
HoCo Sustainability
The most remarkable sustainability strategies featured in HoCo are:
Industrial construction system throughout the use of custom integral aluminium formworks:
speeds-up execution time and eliminates debris in the construction process.
Rainwater collection and re-use for irrigation.
Green roof allowing for better thermal insulation and prevents the heat island effect.
Use of timber products coming from socially and environmentally responsible forestry.
Use of sound insulation systems besides thermal insulation, in order to protect from outdoor
noise as well as to protect from noise originated in other dwellings.
Use of entirely recycled materials, materials with recycled components, or subsequently
recyclable materials.
Heat recovery ventilator: the heat given off in the mechanical ventilation process goes back
to the housing units.
The car park is located above grade and not underground: it makes use of daylight and
natural ventilation.
Private parking with electric car charging port.
Zip car located in the garage for resident use
Storage space meant specifically for bikes.