Arkitektens roll i bostadsutvecklingsprojekt : En studie om att koppla samman gestaltning och arkitektonisk kvalitet med den totala optimeringen av fastighetsförädlingen

The housing market of Stockholm is acting with cautious. The banks are very selective regarding their choice of borrowers and the extent of the lone. This applies both on property developers and their customers. This with increasing land prices makes it difficult for the developer to run profitable projects. With this current situation on the market the challenge is to create the right product that can attract buyers and optimize the property value. A greater variation regarding forms of tenure needs further investigation in order to attract a wider market. Here the architect has a key role to affect the result of the project. An increased rate of exploitation is now forming a problem, as the architecture has not been modified to the new conditions. An example of this is Hagastaden where buildings of nine floors are being built next to each other. The lack of qualities in the product, in form of light, is now resulting in that the newly built apartments does not attract a large amount of buyers. For developers to adapt their product they demanded an increased economic knowledge among architects. The meaning of this thesis is therefore to study the architect's role in housing developments and how the architects can promote attractive and profitable residential projects.The thesis is based on an initial literature review, evaluation of reference projects and interviews with people in the business. Two residential development projects of Arcona has been studied and compared. In the end an overall analysis sum up the results of each method section.The results of the analyses show that the architect can affect the residential developments total profit by their choice of building design. An estimate of the reference projects showed that the total profit increased by 12% per GFA at an alternative design where the residential area rose by 1 percentage point in relation to the gross floor area. Residential buildings have to be built from the inside out, be flexible and designed based on the qualities and abilities of the location. This cost-effective architecture must be considered early in the process. The architect should already use it when designing the local plan together with the municipality and city architect. At the same time consumer's increasing demands must be addressed to create residents attractive for the market. The architect must therefore carefully consider floor plans and storage. With the current trend to build open spaces, this becomes even more important, and therefore storage areas in the apartment can be planned larger.To enhance the architects’ status an insight into the housing policy debate is important. The architectural education needs to be improved and become more true to the reality. An architect who can argue for the selected design based on the buildings construction and economics is what developers of today is looking for.A reduced cost for the initial investment does not necessarily always mean lower quality; just as high quality always is associated with high cost. (Bengtsson, 1998)Validerat; 20130203 (global_studentproject_submitter)