On també vivim: cap a una redefinició de l'habitabilitat des de la diversitat

Abstract

The ecological -and yet social- imperative of the reduction of environmental impact represents a challenge for todays society and for the industrial lifestyle. This challenge can only be faced through the activation of deep changes in all the productive sectors. Regarding the construction sector, two phenomena must be observed: the demand of conditions that allow social reproduction, and the progressive reduction of the available resources'flow and the polluting wastes emission. Since any action addressing an increase in the efficiency of a process must start reconsidering its own purpose, the utility that it provides, these causes make necessary a redefinition of the usefulness of this sector -i.e., the inhabitability. The concept of inhabitability that gives off from current housing regulations represents a barrier, which hinders the attachment of the demand of sustainability to the building sector. In this context the goal of this thesis appears: Contributing to the redefinition of inhabitability through the prospection and analysis of the diverse models currently recognized in Catalonia, at social and legislative level. Firstly, the detection, analysis and assessment -quantitatively and qualitatively -of all the inhabitability options available to the society opens the door to an essential reconsideration of the inhabitability subject. Through this task it is made clear that inhabitability is not a property identifiable only with housing, but that this notion must be expanded to a wide range of alternative models: military residences; touristic residences; youth residences; religious residences; shelters; student residences; homeless residences; hospital services; penitentiaries; and local services. These models present important differences compared to housing, and they necessarily must be included in the inhabitability frame. Secondly, three sectors will be studied to allow going in depth into the conceptual basis on top of which these models are put together. These three sectors are the wealthiest -from the point of view of the regulation of their inhabitability conditions -and the most prominent in Catalonia: the touristic residences, the social services and the penitentiary services. The result of this task provides some alternatives to the focus of inhabitability: The touristic residences are organized around a model based on gradualism, an inhabitability that presents different degrees or levels. The social services are an example of the adaptation will of the responses to the current diversity of social profiles. The penitentiary services are established as the way to transpose the fundamental rights to habitat, becoming a reference of functional completeness. Finally, the comparison of these three sectors with housing contributes to a double exploration of the redefinition possibilities of inhabitability. On one hand, the current consideration of inhabitability, as a quality arisen from the properties of certain spaces, is questioned through an approximation based on the functions that it must provide to the different social profiles, which exist in the society and in the wide range of satisfiers available nowadays. On the other hand, the legislative mechanisms to define inhabitability, developed in these three sectors, are valued as possible alternative options to the current procedure.