Rethinking the Architecture of the Dwelling in the Digital Age

Footprint 32 looks into the many ways the digital turn has impacted the architecture of dwelling. The issue originates from a simple observation: After the digital turn, the house as a paradigm for the discipline seemed to have gone missing from architecture debates. Recent theorisations of the digital in architecture have almost exclusively...

Dwelling in Uncertain

We spent hours sitting in silence, until he turned his eyes away from the window and spoke: ‘I would like to tell you one last story, It has been decided, there will be no more travels beyond the edge for me.’ In the following days I heard, not one but five, stories of people M encountered – inhabitants of the land he traveled to. Truth be told,...

Dementia in the Built Environment

Revisiting the Emmahuis: Designing livable architecture in a rapidly densifying Rotterdam

A financialized housing market entails systemic shortage of affordable housing. Rotterdam’s continuous increase of real estate prices is a case in point: despite its high share of social housing, today Rotterdam faces a shortage of affordable dwellings for lower income groups. How can collective housing design promote social inclusion and reduce...

The Nature Inclusive City: A sustainable human-nature relationship through architecture

An investigation into the disconnection between humans and nature. And a search for meaningfull architectural interventions to improve the human nature relationship.

Designing the explorative living environment for fledglings: An architectural solution for starters on the housing market seeking to maintain their explorative lifestyle

This graduation project will focus on the dwelling design of the so-called ‘fledglings’: a specific type of starters on the housing market seeking to achieve an explorative lifestyle in their daily life. The current generation of starters in Rotterdam experiences several issues in housing, like the raising buying and renting prices of 40% over...

Onbeperkt Wonen: Living independently in a stimulating residential environment for young people with a mild intellectual disability

“In which way can the design of the residential environment contribute to the social self-reliance of young people with a mild intellectual disability?” We are facing a huge challenge in the Netherlands: we have to build up to ‘1 Million Homes’ by 2030. But such a huge assignment raises the question if those new dwellings will be inclusive...

The role of collectiveness in the living environment of dementia sufferers: To what extent can collectiveness support a neighbourhood in which people with dementia, with a demand for care can live?

Background More and more people have to deal with dementia themselves, in their direct or indirect environment. However, this problem is often not part of everyday life in our society. Our living environment is not designed for the increasing dependence of these people and the problems that they daily face remains often behind closed doors. The...

Exploring the connection between arriving young adults and current residents of Addis Ababa: The redevelopment of bole sub city Woreda 14, Gerji, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

The goal of the graduation studio is to research and design housing solutions that improve the livelihood of Addis Ababa’s urban dwellers. Combining analysis, planning and design, the participants of this graduation studio were challenged to use multidisciplinary research methods and tools to elaborate design proposals for the development of a...

The Equitable City

Co living for keyworkers in the Minervahaven in Amsterdam

Amsterdam has to deal with housing shortages, there is a need for smaller and affordable houses, especially for people working in the city: keyworkers.<br/>Simultaneously, the co-living building I designed, stimulates<br/>social interaction and sharing of spaces and other utensils for its residents.

NeighbourFOOD: Raising food awareness in the future city

The studio that I chose to participate was ‘Dutch Housing: Stronghold Amsterdam’. The topic of this studio as mentioned in its studio manual concerns problems with ecology, climate, overpopulation, mass-migration, a shifting global power balance, changing demographics, etc., cities like Amsterdam will face in the future. But the question is: how...

Ascending Integration Centre

The concept is to design a living environment, a habitat, for immigrants, Ex-pats and refugees, who are granted asylum. This habitat is meant to be a stepping stone in their integration process, in which they learn about Dutch culture, language and prepare to be fully adopted in Dutch society. <br/> The location of this centre is in the...

Working & Living on the edge

A Critical Regionalist Approach Towards Balancing Tradition and Modernity in Housing in North-East Morocco

The notion of critical regionalism came about 35 years ago and was first used by Alexander Tzonis and Liane Lefaivre as well as Kenneth Frampton. Even before the term was used, there have been several notions about the sociology behind an approach that is pleading for a better understanding of the context. In smaller and medium Moroccan cities,...

Dwelling & Architecture: At home in the city

The Integrated Hybrid

"The Integrated Hybrid" envisions a hybrid building on the last vacant site on the Oostelijke Handelskade in Amsterdam. Society's needs are diverse and constantly changing and the design context of Amsterdam is among the most culturally diverse in the world. My project proposes a true hybrid building (which includes dwellings) that can meet the...

Notion of the North

‘At the moment Amsterdam, including the north, is undergoing big changes...’ ‘... the city is suffering from the crisis and is looking for new ways to house people. This also concerns the district of Amsterdam Noord. How will these changes and conditions effect the character of this part of Amsterdam. Will ‘Noord’ in twenty years still be ‘Noord...