Causing a Neighbourhood to Reach a Tipping Point
In the 1970s and 1980s it was usual to demolish outdated nineteenth-century blocks of housing completely and replace them with new-build, certainly in the social sector.
Harald Mooij (b. 1974) studied architecture at Delft University of Technology and the Istituto Universitario di Architettura di Venezia (IUAV). He is an architect with ADP Architects in Amsterdam and is involved in various current projects (including housing) both on historical urban sites and in new areas. He has been a tutor at Delft University of Technology in the Chair of Architecture and Dwelling since 2004. He writes regularly for professional journals in The Netherlands and abroad, is an editor of DASH and is the author, with Bernard Leupen, of the book Housing Design. A Manual, published in 2008.
In the 1970s and 1980s it was usual to demolish outdated nineteenth-century blocks of housing completely and replace them with new-build, certainly in the social sector.
Not so very long ago, renovation or wholesale maintenance of post-war housing was not an activity you could use to distinguish yourself as an architect. After all, the task was primarily technical in nature. There was no honour to be gained as an architect unless it involved a residential building by a famous architect like Rietveld, Van Tijen or Brinkman en Van der Vlugt, or so it seemed.
Traditionally, architecture is not only about the production of new buildings, but also about the adaptation of existing ones. Consulting the history of architecture teaches us that there are countless fantastic examples of buildings that have been radically transformed over time, for example Roman theatres and stadiums that were transformed into squares and residential complexes […]
In the year 305, Gaius Aurelius Valerius Diocletian stood down as the emperor of the Roman Empire of his own free will – unheard of in ancient times – to retire to his recently completed residence on the Adriatic coast, near the fishing village of Asphalatos in present-day Croatia. During his 20-year reign, he implemented […]
With the official division of the former minor seminary Hageveld in Heemstede into a front and rear section in 2001, a period of living and learning under a shared roof came to a definitive end. The rear section, consisting of two parallel building strips with a central chapel, a schoolyard, sports fields and part of […]
In 2004, the Integrated Housing Development Programme (IHDP) was introduced in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, to reduce the overwhelming housing backlog estimated at about 300,000 housing units and to replace 50 per cent of the dilapidated housing stock. The programme, also known as the ‘Grand Housing Programme’ (GHP), was initiated by the then mayor Arkebe Oqubay […]
It wasn’t until the explosive growth of universities after the Second World War that a demand was created in the Netherlands for large-scale new construction, specifically for students. A reconstruction of the lively debate about the origins and implementation of this task raises universal questions about communality and individual development.
The beginning of this year saw the opening of Campus Diemen Zuid, a student campus based on the American example. With its 936 student rooms in former office buildings and a private client, this project illustrates a new kind of development. A conversation with the initiator about his motivations and vision.
The plan documentation for this tenth edition of DASH includes ten examples of student housing projects that have actually been built. Spread across Europe and North America, the projects give a panoramic overview of models for student housing that have been developed over the past 500 years. The architecture of the student dwelling has a […]
In 1921, the French Minister of Education André Honorat launched the initiative for an ‘international city’ for students, in the green band around the old city ramparts of Paris. Good housing for a growing student population also served the more ideological goal of preventing new wars through international cooperation. France made the land available free of cost, and participating countries could build a fondation in line with their own ideas and budget, to be transferred on delivery to the Cité Internationale Universitaire de Paris…
An ordinary rectangular lot in a rural expansion district of Santiago de Chile was the inspiration for this amazing Wall House. The lot is screened off from its immediate surroundings by several boscages, which however do not hinder a wider view of the Andes Mountains. This inspired the architects Frohn and Rojas to come up […]
The plan documentation of the sixth issue of DASH features a series of historic and more recent projects that provide a panorama of the way in which, over the past 100 years, traditional housing forms have been used as the basis for new projects. Each project is illustrated with new analytical drawings and with photographs […]