Core housing and incremental growth

This research report, originally released in 1997 and titled Core housing and incremental growth - Is the vision being realised? (PDF, 8.68 MB), focused on a fundamental aspect of early post-1994 housing policy — the idea of incremental growth in housing. At the centre of this approach was the belief that promoting the incremental expansion of housing after service and core housing provision would be an effective strategy. The approach assumes that residents will have both the ability and willingness to gradually enhance initially basic dwellings, transforming them into more suitable homes that meet their developing needs.
 

At the time when the new SA housing policy was in its infancy, the CSIR's Division of Building Technology conducted an in-depth study to examine the real-world outcomes of this housing approach in two core housing projects, one in eThekwini and the other in Cape Town.
 

The study sought to answer critical questions: 

• Would the delivery of core housing eventually lead to the development of satisfactory living environments?
• Could the self-building process lead to an acceptable quality of life for residents? 
• Would this housing model align with the needs and aspirations of the people residing in these homes? 

The motivation behind the study was to evaluate whether the government policies of the time, which included the mass construction of small core houses, would have the potential to create living environments of reasonable quality.
 

A later study by anthropologist Tikvah Breimer revisited the Cape Town (Khayelitsha) case study after more than 25 years to more deeply assess the long term impacts of the core housing approach and understand the experiences of the residents.