Low-rise residential areas in Seoul, which were formed through land readjustment projects in the 1960s and 1980s, have been converted into high-density residential areas centered on multi-family and multi-family houses amid urban advancement, populati...
Low-rise residential areas in Seoul, which were formed through land readjustment projects in the 1960s and 1980s, have been converted into high-density residential areas centered on multi-family and multi-family houses amid urban advancement, population growth, and changes in housing demand, but have structural limitations such as aging, lack of infrastructure, and narrow street width. As large-scale maintenance projects continued to be delayed and suspended, the 「Act on Special Concerning Unoccupied House or Small-Scale Housing Improvement」 enacted in 2017 prepared a new maintenance method based on small plots, and the autonomous housing improvement project plays an important role in that it can be quickly repaired based on the consensus of a small number of plots.
The purpose of this study is to understand the institutional manifestation of autonomous housing improvement projects targeting construction completion cases promoted in low-rise residential areas in Seoul. In addition, by identifying the changes and improvements that make to the existing urban environment, they tried to examine the possibility of small-scale unit regeneration of old low-rise residential areas.
After the Small Housing Improvement Act was implemented in 2017, 40 autonomous housing improvement projects completed in Seoul by April 2025 were investigated and analyzed, general status was examined, and construction characteristics were analyzed. The institutional manifestation of the autonomous housing improvement project was analyzed from the perspective of the plot consolidation method, the method of securing the requirements for road access, and the building connection and separation method. Through an in-depth analysis of large-scale building cases of 500 square meters or more, not a small plot unit, the contribution of the autonomous housing improvement project to the city of low-rise dwellings was analyzed.
In the general status of the 40 completed target sites, the nature and size of the land and whether the deregulation items of the system were used were investigated. It was found that construction was carried out mainly in general residential areas, and in the type I general residential areas, where development was difficult due to the floor area ratio ordinance, the area ratio deregulation items by rental housing construction were actively used. In terms of size, the average size of the project increased in the order of autonomous type, building agreement type, and plot-consolidation type, while at the same time, the scope of their project implementation area increased. In other words, it was confirmed that the results of the consistent project did not appear in the building agreement type and the plot consolidation type, but diversified architectural types appeared. With the emergence of new types of row houses and apartments, the scale of the project gradually increased. As the laws and regulations were continuously revised at the same time as the project was implemented, the scope of deregulation on the floor area ratio was further subdivided and the number of cases of deregulation on the area ratio by rental housing construction gradually increased.
In a study on the direction of land plot coupling, land plot coupling in the north-south direction appeared in 62.8% of cases. In particular, in the 'building agreement type', there were many cases of actively utilizing the special cases of the system not subject to the diagonal restriction of the right to sunlight within the agreement area.
In a study on the acquisition of road access conditions, three response strategies appeared in 22.5% of cases, as there were many plotss that did not meet the road aceess requirements under the Building Act. First, there was a case in which the width of the access road was secured by expanding the road by using a partial area of the plots as the road exclusion area. Second, in the case where a large proportion of the plots were in contact with a narrow dead end road with a length of 35m, the area of use of each plot was greatly reduced when the road was excluded, and as an alternative to this, a case was found that a dead end road was included as the site of the project. Finally, there was a case in which the access requirements were secured through a plot consolidation or building agreement with the plot that met the access requirements in the blind land that was not in contact with the road.
In a study on the combination and separation of building buildings, five types appeared in terms of the combination-differentiation of buildings. In the autonomous project, individual plot individual architecture types in which independent buildings were built on each plot appeared. A combined wall type architecture type that was constructed through an architectural agreement and a core-sharing architecture type in which the two architectures shared a core on the land boundary were constructed as a combined architecture appeared. The type of single-type architecture built as one building and the type of complex architecture that mixed the combined wall-type architecture, core-sharing, and individual building were also shown.
Building cases of 500 square meters or more that generate more frequencies of contact with the city were analyzed in-depth based on the analysis factors that occurred in the linkage structure of road-plot-building-neighborhood. In the road-plot relationship, the type of street, the connection of the street, and the use of the vacan lot within building site were examined. In the plot-building relationship, the type of separation of the building and the boundary of the house were examined, and in the road-building relationship, the horizontal protrusion and the visual corridor of the building were examined. The form and elevation of the building mass that occur in the relationship where the elements of the road-plot-building work in combination were examined, and furthermore, the possibility of performing the function of the neighborhood was identified.
The construction of the autonomous housing maintenance project was improving the environment of the existing low-rise residential area from the perspective of adjusting the scale of construction in response to the scale of the low-rise residential area, forming urban continuity, and supplementing the functions of the low-rise residential area. The horizontal mass segmentation, which is perceived differently by physically separating to cope with the scale of the low-rise residential area, or the horizontal mass segmentation through the composition of the podium and the upper layer, and the vertical mass segmentation through the creation of a high piloti occurred. The city and the building were visually continuous through terraces and balconies, and new streets within the land were added to physically connect them to the existing streets. Finally, parking lots and neighborhood living facilities were created along with the residential area to reinforce the function of the neighborhood, and a highly utilized open space was provided through the integrated application of the landscape area within the building agreement area.
This study is significant in that it visualized architecture in autonomous housing improvement projects to enhance understanding of the system. In addition, it was revealed that the autonomous housing improvement project functions as a practical solution to improve aging houses, increase the utilization of small plots through special provisions, and improve the environment of low-rise residential areas.