JD
J.A. Dijk
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Blurring Boundaries
Designing for a social infrastructure
The Netherlands is currently facing a structural housing crisis that is often reduced to a purely quantitative challenge, overlooking complex spatial and social realities. At the same time, a widening socioeconomic gap has left a doubly disadvantaged group, consisting of low-income households, single elderly people, individuals with mild physical disabilities, and statusholders, struggling to secure affordable housing while lacking a robust social infrastructure to serve as a safety net.
This graduation project, “Blurring Boundaries: Designing for a social infrastructure,” seeks to address these interconnected qualitative and quantitative challenges through integrated architectural and urban design. Utilizing a “Research by Design” methodology, the project proposes a residential complex located in the Spaanse Polder, Rotterdam, acting as a transition zone between the city’s urban fabric and the productive landscape.
The core of the design is rooted in the creation of a social infrastructure that facilitates Asset-Based Community Development and builds both Bonding- and Bridging Social Capital among diverse residents. Architecturally, this is achieved through a carefully articulated hierarchy of spaces, ranging from private dwellings to shared residential groups and fully public areas. They are designed to systematically lower the threshold for casual social interaction. The project combines spatial, social, and organisational strategies to support long-term inclusion and adaptability. The building limits its overall scale to 47 dwellings to prevent anonymity and carefully balances supportive and non-supportive residents to ensure a functional community. Dwellings are clustered into residential groups of four to five units that share communal living rooms, kitchens, and outdoor spaces to foster daily mutual reliance.
To ensure long-term adaptability and ecological responsibility, the building employs a flexible,
demountable timber skeleton structure utilizing BauBuche laminated beams. This structural grid allows for adaptable floor plans of 30, 45, and 60 square meters to suit diverse and evolving household compositions. Finally, financial feasibility and sustained affordability are secured through a management cooperative model, where middle-income households cross-subsidize lower-income units. Ultimately, this research demonstrates that integrating cooperative organizational models, flexible sustainable construction, and deliberate social infrastructure can successfully empower disadvantaged groups and foster resilient, socially inclusive living environments. ...
This graduation project, “Blurring Boundaries: Designing for a social infrastructure,” seeks to address these interconnected qualitative and quantitative challenges through integrated architectural and urban design. Utilizing a “Research by Design” methodology, the project proposes a residential complex located in the Spaanse Polder, Rotterdam, acting as a transition zone between the city’s urban fabric and the productive landscape.
The core of the design is rooted in the creation of a social infrastructure that facilitates Asset-Based Community Development and builds both Bonding- and Bridging Social Capital among diverse residents. Architecturally, this is achieved through a carefully articulated hierarchy of spaces, ranging from private dwellings to shared residential groups and fully public areas. They are designed to systematically lower the threshold for casual social interaction. The project combines spatial, social, and organisational strategies to support long-term inclusion and adaptability. The building limits its overall scale to 47 dwellings to prevent anonymity and carefully balances supportive and non-supportive residents to ensure a functional community. Dwellings are clustered into residential groups of four to five units that share communal living rooms, kitchens, and outdoor spaces to foster daily mutual reliance.
To ensure long-term adaptability and ecological responsibility, the building employs a flexible,
demountable timber skeleton structure utilizing BauBuche laminated beams. This structural grid allows for adaptable floor plans of 30, 45, and 60 square meters to suit diverse and evolving household compositions. Finally, financial feasibility and sustained affordability are secured through a management cooperative model, where middle-income households cross-subsidize lower-income units. Ultimately, this research demonstrates that integrating cooperative organizational models, flexible sustainable construction, and deliberate social infrastructure can successfully empower disadvantaged groups and foster resilient, socially inclusive living environments. ...
The Netherlands is currently facing a structural housing crisis that is often reduced to a purely quantitative challenge, overlooking complex spatial and social realities. At the same time, a widening socioeconomic gap has left a doubly disadvantaged group, consisting of low-income households, single elderly people, individuals with mild physical disabilities, and statusholders, struggling to secure affordable housing while lacking a robust social infrastructure to serve as a safety net.
This graduation project, “Blurring Boundaries: Designing for a social infrastructure,” seeks to address these interconnected qualitative and quantitative challenges through integrated architectural and urban design. Utilizing a “Research by Design” methodology, the project proposes a residential complex located in the Spaanse Polder, Rotterdam, acting as a transition zone between the city’s urban fabric and the productive landscape.
The core of the design is rooted in the creation of a social infrastructure that facilitates Asset-Based Community Development and builds both Bonding- and Bridging Social Capital among diverse residents. Architecturally, this is achieved through a carefully articulated hierarchy of spaces, ranging from private dwellings to shared residential groups and fully public areas. They are designed to systematically lower the threshold for casual social interaction. The project combines spatial, social, and organisational strategies to support long-term inclusion and adaptability. The building limits its overall scale to 47 dwellings to prevent anonymity and carefully balances supportive and non-supportive residents to ensure a functional community. Dwellings are clustered into residential groups of four to five units that share communal living rooms, kitchens, and outdoor spaces to foster daily mutual reliance.
To ensure long-term adaptability and ecological responsibility, the building employs a flexible,
demountable timber skeleton structure utilizing BauBuche laminated beams. This structural grid allows for adaptable floor plans of 30, 45, and 60 square meters to suit diverse and evolving household compositions. Finally, financial feasibility and sustained affordability are secured through a management cooperative model, where middle-income households cross-subsidize lower-income units. Ultimately, this research demonstrates that integrating cooperative organizational models, flexible sustainable construction, and deliberate social infrastructure can successfully empower disadvantaged groups and foster resilient, socially inclusive living environments.
This graduation project, “Blurring Boundaries: Designing for a social infrastructure,” seeks to address these interconnected qualitative and quantitative challenges through integrated architectural and urban design. Utilizing a “Research by Design” methodology, the project proposes a residential complex located in the Spaanse Polder, Rotterdam, acting as a transition zone between the city’s urban fabric and the productive landscape.
The core of the design is rooted in the creation of a social infrastructure that facilitates Asset-Based Community Development and builds both Bonding- and Bridging Social Capital among diverse residents. Architecturally, this is achieved through a carefully articulated hierarchy of spaces, ranging from private dwellings to shared residential groups and fully public areas. They are designed to systematically lower the threshold for casual social interaction. The project combines spatial, social, and organisational strategies to support long-term inclusion and adaptability. The building limits its overall scale to 47 dwellings to prevent anonymity and carefully balances supportive and non-supportive residents to ensure a functional community. Dwellings are clustered into residential groups of four to five units that share communal living rooms, kitchens, and outdoor spaces to foster daily mutual reliance.
To ensure long-term adaptability and ecological responsibility, the building employs a flexible,
demountable timber skeleton structure utilizing BauBuche laminated beams. This structural grid allows for adaptable floor plans of 30, 45, and 60 square meters to suit diverse and evolving household compositions. Finally, financial feasibility and sustained affordability are secured through a management cooperative model, where middle-income households cross-subsidize lower-income units. Ultimately, this research demonstrates that integrating cooperative organizational models, flexible sustainable construction, and deliberate social infrastructure can successfully empower disadvantaged groups and foster resilient, socially inclusive living environments.
The Reduced Raumplan
Implementing Loosian design principles in lower- middle-class housing
During the 1920s and 1930s, a group of Viennese architects designed houses with an architectural idea called Raumplan. With this idea, primarily larger villas were designed and built. The houses that Jacques Groag designed for the Viennese Werkbundsiedlung have some implementations of the characteristics of the Raumplan but were designed as lower-middle-class housing.
Therefore, the research question is as follows: what happened to the Raumplan when it was applied to Groag’s lower-middle-class housing in the Viennese Werkbundsiedlung?
This thesis will research historical literature and compare it with images and drawings of various houses belonging to the Raumplan and the Werkbundsiedlung. First, the Werkbundsiedlung and the Raumplan will be explained. After explaining the Raumplan and the Werkbundsiedlung, the dwellings designed by Groag, Loos, and Kulka for the Werkbundsiedlung will be compared with the characteristics of the Raumplan and earlier designs by the architects. This provides a clear picture of what characteristics of the Raumplan and earlier projects the architects incorporated into lower-middle-class housing. Based on this, a proper conclusion can be drawn on the research question.
It can be concluded that there is not one particular way of implementing the Raumplan into lower-middle-class housing. It can be done in several ways, addressing different characteristics of the Raumplan. One thing is clear: when applied, the Raumplan can be found in a derived or reduced form, and it does not fully correspond to the characteristics of the Raumplan as found in the larger villas. ...
Therefore, the research question is as follows: what happened to the Raumplan when it was applied to Groag’s lower-middle-class housing in the Viennese Werkbundsiedlung?
This thesis will research historical literature and compare it with images and drawings of various houses belonging to the Raumplan and the Werkbundsiedlung. First, the Werkbundsiedlung and the Raumplan will be explained. After explaining the Raumplan and the Werkbundsiedlung, the dwellings designed by Groag, Loos, and Kulka for the Werkbundsiedlung will be compared with the characteristics of the Raumplan and earlier designs by the architects. This provides a clear picture of what characteristics of the Raumplan and earlier projects the architects incorporated into lower-middle-class housing. Based on this, a proper conclusion can be drawn on the research question.
It can be concluded that there is not one particular way of implementing the Raumplan into lower-middle-class housing. It can be done in several ways, addressing different characteristics of the Raumplan. One thing is clear: when applied, the Raumplan can be found in a derived or reduced form, and it does not fully correspond to the characteristics of the Raumplan as found in the larger villas. ...
During the 1920s and 1930s, a group of Viennese architects designed houses with an architectural idea called Raumplan. With this idea, primarily larger villas were designed and built. The houses that Jacques Groag designed for the Viennese Werkbundsiedlung have some implementations of the characteristics of the Raumplan but were designed as lower-middle-class housing.
Therefore, the research question is as follows: what happened to the Raumplan when it was applied to Groag’s lower-middle-class housing in the Viennese Werkbundsiedlung?
This thesis will research historical literature and compare it with images and drawings of various houses belonging to the Raumplan and the Werkbundsiedlung. First, the Werkbundsiedlung and the Raumplan will be explained. After explaining the Raumplan and the Werkbundsiedlung, the dwellings designed by Groag, Loos, and Kulka for the Werkbundsiedlung will be compared with the characteristics of the Raumplan and earlier designs by the architects. This provides a clear picture of what characteristics of the Raumplan and earlier projects the architects incorporated into lower-middle-class housing. Based on this, a proper conclusion can be drawn on the research question.
It can be concluded that there is not one particular way of implementing the Raumplan into lower-middle-class housing. It can be done in several ways, addressing different characteristics of the Raumplan. One thing is clear: when applied, the Raumplan can be found in a derived or reduced form, and it does not fully correspond to the characteristics of the Raumplan as found in the larger villas.
Therefore, the research question is as follows: what happened to the Raumplan when it was applied to Groag’s lower-middle-class housing in the Viennese Werkbundsiedlung?
This thesis will research historical literature and compare it with images and drawings of various houses belonging to the Raumplan and the Werkbundsiedlung. First, the Werkbundsiedlung and the Raumplan will be explained. After explaining the Raumplan and the Werkbundsiedlung, the dwellings designed by Groag, Loos, and Kulka for the Werkbundsiedlung will be compared with the characteristics of the Raumplan and earlier designs by the architects. This provides a clear picture of what characteristics of the Raumplan and earlier projects the architects incorporated into lower-middle-class housing. Based on this, a proper conclusion can be drawn on the research question.
It can be concluded that there is not one particular way of implementing the Raumplan into lower-middle-class housing. It can be done in several ways, addressing different characteristics of the Raumplan. One thing is clear: when applied, the Raumplan can be found in a derived or reduced form, and it does not fully correspond to the characteristics of the Raumplan as found in the larger villas.