The Challenges in Sustainable Transformation of Large Scale Housing: the Case of Riga

The processes of the last decades have resulted in serious changes in the situation and problems pertaining to the large-scale housing estates. In Latvia the land reform, carrying out denationalization and privatization, along with a core capital for many inhabitants has also created a range of problems – one of them: as a result of denationalisation of land properties, when the land in large-scale residential districts was returned to the original owners and then provided as the minimum required land to the privatised buildings, the origin al spatial composition of districts was completely destroyed, creating a legal basis for new construction in large scale residential districts. Currently the new buildings and its fenced-off territories cover big part of the courtyards what may lead to spatial as well as social conflicts. Al though public open spaces are treated as an important element of the living environment, their utilisation considerably differs from the intended one