The course Housing Studies, aimed at master's students in architecture, articulates a critical pedagogy that interrogates the non-neutrality of the architectural discipline in shaping social relations and modes of life. Focusing on the analysis of twentieth-century collective housing projects, the course combines archival research and curatorial practice as tools for critical design. Through the engagement with historical documents and the construction of a collective exhibition, students reinterpret the past from an intersectional perspective that renders visible bodies and communities traditionally excluded from dominant narratives. This approach enables them to question spatial norms that reproduce inequalities of class, gender, race, age, or mobility, and to formulate new projective narratives. By interweaving historical analysis, graphic representation, and cultural production, the final exhibition becomes an act of design that dissolves the boundaries between classroom, archive, and society, fostering ethically engaged forms of architectural knowledge and practice. ... Read more

Presentation on the doctoral thesis 'Domesticity Behind Bars' at the Doctoral Meetings of the Doctoral Programme in Advanced Architectural Projects, Department of Architectural Projects, Universidad Politécnica de Madrid. In this lecture, aimed at doctoral students, important topics about the development of the thesis are introduced: choice of a topic, methodologies, dissemination, among other issues.
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Robin Evans (1944-1993) published only one book during his lifetime, and it was the outcome of 13 years of work. As he remarked in the acknowledgments, he began collecting material for this project in 1969, the same year he completed his studies at the Architectural Association in London. At the time, the main concern of Evans’s research, according to Robin Middleton’s overview of his writings, was the way people lived together, and lived together, in particular, in an anti-authoritarian way’.1 With The Fabrication of Virtue, Evans inverted this theme to offer insight into the role of architecture and the built environment in society. What could be more illuminating, in this regard, than studying the most overtly authoritarian form of housing? [...] ... Read more

Francine Houben was a student at the Faculteit Bouwkunde, Technische Hoogeschool Delft, when designed the Kruisplein project together with her classmates Henk Döll and Roelf Steenhuis, between the years 1980 and 1983. The youth housing competition “Jongerenhuisvesting Kruisplein Rotterdam” was held by the Projektegroep ‘Het Oude Westen’ and the Maatschappij Volkswoningen, both in Rotterdam, and consisted of two rounds. This research analyses the Kruisplein project regarding the competition process, studying both the first and second versions presented in 1980 and 1982, and considering the academic context to which they were still linked when they designed it. Together they presented their graduation report at the TH Delft “Woning en normering. De rol van het architectonisch ontwerp” on housing and norms in 1984. This was also the year in which they founded their office ‘Architektengroep Mecanoo’, and the realisation of the project began. For them, Kruisplein’s project was their start to pursue “a fundamental renewal of Dutch domestic architecture”, introducing the concept of “neutral dwelling”. This paper shows to what extent Mecanoo’s Kruisplein project was able to offer a different perspective about the competition’s programme itself but ultimately on how the problem of housing “special” groups such as the “youth” was pursued at the time. ... Read more

This article critically analyzes the Over-Amstel Penitentiary Institution, which represents a unique moment in prison architecture. At that time the principles of domestic design merged with institutional ones for detention houses, reflecting the intertwining of the two. The prison was intended to foster humane living conditions, a vision in keeping with the ideals and policies of the post-war Welfare State. ... Read more

One- and two-person households are predominant in most developed countries; moreover, they are the fastest growing, including the Netherlands (75%). This trend dates back to the 1960s, when they started to increase sharply due to social, economic and political developments, leading towards a more diverse society (38%). In 1975, the Dutch government responded to this new demand by introducing so-called “HAT units”, one and two-person housing units, through the Nota on Housing for One and Two-person Households (Huisvesting Alleenstaanden en Tweepersoonshuishoudens). Over 77.000 HAT units were built between 1975 and 1995. This paper analyses a project developed under the impact of this innovative housing policy: the Youth Housing Project (Jongerenhuisvesting) in Kruisplein, Rotterdam, by Architectengroep Mecanoo, designed and built between 1981 and 1985, which introduced innovation in housing design by offering a critical perspective on how the housing problem of target groups such as young people was addressed at the time. ... Read more

This scientific paper examines how the Dutch architects Jacoba Froukje Pot-Keegstra (1908-1997) and her husband Johan Willem Hindrik Cornelis Pot (1909-1972) designed for older people. In the decades following World War II, with the advent of the welfare state, care for older people became a priority of new social policy in the Netherlands. In 1956, the state pensions were launched (Algemene Ouderdomswet), and in 1963, the Dutch Ministry of Housing and Spatial Planning (Volkshuisvesting en Ruimtelijke Ordening) introduced the Older People’s Homes Act (Wet op de Bejaardenoorden). At the time, there was a growing demand for housing for older people, and this aimed to facilitate their large-scale production while meeting the highest possible standards. Through some of their most significant projects, this paper explores the aspects that Pot & Pot-Keegstra added to the design of collective housing to make life more convenient for old people beyond the “Regulations and Guidelines” (Voorschriften en Wenken) introduced in 1965. The methodology of this paper consists mainly of archival research in the National Collection for Dutch Architecture and Urban Planning at the Nieuwe Instituut in Rotterdam, a review of scientific and non-scientific literature, and plan analysis. It is worth noting that Pot-Keegstra was the first female architect by the Academy of Architecture in Amsterdam in 1936, and she was one of the very first women to run an office with her husband. Among the analysed projects designed by Pot & Pot-Keegstra for older people is the first high-rise nursing home, the Osdorperhof in Amsterdam (1962-1968). The General Act on Exceptional Medical Expenses adopted in 1968 (Algemene Wet Bijzondere Ziektekosten) made the proliferation of nursing homes possible. The Osdorperhof, with medically oriented care, was a forerunner of the nursing home boom that began in the late 1960s. The design of this project facilitated a new way of taking care of older people, as this collective housing enabled them to live relatively independently and to have the care they needed. ... Read more

This proposal reviews the 19th-century American feminist Charlotte Perkins Gilman (1860-1935) and her influence on Dutch housing during the early 20th century, particularly due to her book Women and Economics: A Study of the Economic Relation Between Men and Women as a Factor in Social Evolution (1898). Gilman deplored mistress-servant relations as much as husband-wife exploitation, so she advocated for kitchenless apartments with dining rooms and day-care centres in cities, as well as kitchenless houses in suburban blocks, suggesting that female entrepreneurs organize cooked-food delivery, childcare, and cleaning services on a ‘business basis’. As Dolores Hayden pointed out, in Women and Economics Gilman introduced the feminist ‘apartment hotel’ as an element of urban evolution: ‘the human race was evolving in a more cooperative direction, so, too, she was sure that the physical form of human habitations was subject to evolutionary forces’.
In the Netherlands the shortage of domestic servants became a problematic issue at the end of the 19th century, and it stimulated middle-class housewives and architects to find solutions. Gilman’s work had an influence on this: In the American feminist’s view, this shortage of servants jeopardized the liberation of middle- and upper-class women, who were now forced to stay in the privacy of the home instead of playing a public role. The reception of Gilman’s ‘grand domestic revolution’ - i.e. the attempt for the centralisation of all domestic services - generated interesting projects in the Netherlands, from ‘collective kitchens’ (the first of which opened in Amsterdam in 1903), to the Dutch version of the ‘apartment hotel’, which came to be known as the ‘dwelling hotel’ (woonhotel). The first of these ‘dwelling hotels’ opened in the Hague in 1906 and was followed by more, some of which were no longer designed for families but for single working women. ... Read more

In Amsterdam Nord, on the banks of the IJ, is located IJ-plein, the urban plan designed and built between 1980 and 1988, by a team led by Rem Koolhaas and the Office for Metropolitan Architecture. From this extensive urban plan, which was devoted entirely to social housing and included education and leisure programmes, this research draws attention to the Oost III section, located on the easter end side of the plan. The Oost III buildings were also designed by Koolhaas/OMA and consist of mainly two housing blocks: a larger one facing a wharf, which is elevated on a podium and pilotis where other programmes are included, and a short one behind. The Oost III blocks comprise many different types of housing, which ranged from two to five rooms, and include also a large collective unit for mentally handicapped. Of these, the smallest housing are the so-called ‘HAT’ units, a novelty in response to the initiative launched in 1975 by the state secretary of Volkshuisvesting en Ruimtelijke ordening, to deal with the problem of affordable housing for singles or pairs, in the nota ‘Huisvesting Alleenstaanden en Tweepersoonshuishoudens’. This paper addresses the design of the Oost III in relation to the ‘HAT’ units: could the smallest units offer another lecture on this section of IJ-plein? The domesticity of the ‘HAT’ units, of their materiality and their subjects, shows the extent to which they challenge the inherent meanings and understanding of housing architecture when the family is no longer the norm, with all that this entails. Here, ‘unexpected’ domesticity refers to the concept of ‘housing the unpredictable’, in other words, the multiple possible realities of home life. This concept is explored at the different scales of the Oost III urban section: the ‘HAT’ housing unit; the interior spaces of the blocks that connect these units, such as the access system; and the exterior spaces of this urban plan. For an ever-changing society, a particular reinterpretation of modern precedents embraced the new. ... Read more

This paper provides an overview on how small housing can be studied following an exploratory strategy, through a comparative analysis that brings together architectural theory and practice. !is research stems from the author’s doctoral thesis, Domesticity ‘Behind Bars’, and its subsequent development as a postdoctoral project, ‘Unexpected’ Domesticity. Both studies seek to provide an answer to the following research question: How is it possible to explore the tensions and contradictions of domesticity? To this end, this research studies Non-traditional Forms of Collective Housing, this is, other forms of collective housing for people who live alone, but within a community. Because one of the main challenges in many cities and countries today is the growing demand for non-family households. Two cases designed by one of the most influential architects of the last quarter of the 20th century, Rem Koolhaas and Office for Metropolitan Architecture, are placed in relation to each other, exploring their differences and similarities. In this paper, his proposal for the renovation of a 19th-century panopticon prison is analysed, together with another of his housing projects in which the typological variety shows small units as an alternative to those in-tended for families. For various reasons, both can be considered paradigmatic projects. The first is one of only three pure panoptic prisons built in the Netherlands at the end of the 19th century, known as De Koepel (the dome), specifically the one located in the city of Arnhem, which is a National Monument. !e proposal for the renovation of the entire prison complex was developed over almost a decade, between 1979 and 1988, and culminated in the specific proposal for the design of the interior of the cells. !e second case is the Oost III subplan of the IJ-plein urban plan, located in a former harbour area on the banks of the IJ in Amsterdam North, a plan in which all the housing was social housing, which is unique in the Netherlands and unfeasible today. !e plan was designed and built between 1980 and 1988, and in the housing blocks of the Oost III subplan that Koolhaas/OMA themselves also implemented, the small housing units have a significant presence. Archival work plays an essential role in the methodology of this research, and the documents of both projects are held in the National Collection for Dutch Architecture and Urban Planning, at the Nieuwe Institute in Rotterdam. !is research shows that individual small living units often are complemented by options for use that offer more complex ways of living together. ... Read more

This article focuses on the OMA’s IJ-plein master plan located on a former shipping wharf in Amsterdam North (1980-1988). Particularly in the domesticity of the different dwellings, which were designed by six other offices, including the one by Koolhaas, and were 100% for social housing. This project is considered one of the turning points of what finally culminated in the 1990s’ Super Dutch. Several authors have studied this project, particularly Bernard Leupen, author of the book “IJ-Plein. Een speurotcht naar niewusw compositiorische mideelen” [IJ-Plein. A search for new compositional idea] (010, 1989). However, as Leupen himself pointed out, his study lacks specific issues, such as evaluating dwellings and their use. It was published immediately after the project ended. More recently, other authors have studied the project, such as Christophe Van Gerrewey in “A Weissenhofsiedlung for Amsterdam” (Anyone, 2018) or Lara Schrijver in “Stubborn Modernity, IJ-plein Amsterdam” (OASE, 2015). While these are significant contributions, they do not delve into the design of the dwellings, developing questions related to commissioning, process, or precedents. This study offers a new analysis of the project with an emphasis on housing design: not only on their novel interpretation of modern tradition at the time of their conception, but on the inherent and unexpected domesticity of their typological proposals today. ... Read more

This article focuses on the OMA’s IJ-plein master plan located on a former shipping wharf in Amsterdam North (1980-1988). Particularly in the domesticity of the different dwellings, which were designed by six other offices, including the one by Koolhaas, and were 100% for social housing. This project is considered one of the turning points of what finally culminated in the 1990s’ Super Dutch. Several authors have studied this project, particularly Bernard Leupen, author of the book “IJ-Plein. Een speurotcht naar niewusw compositiorische mideelen” [IJ-Plein. A search for new compositional idea] (010, 1989). However, as Leupen himself pointed out, his study lacks specific issues, such as evaluating dwellings and their use. It was published immediately after the project ended. More recently, other authors have studied the project, such as Christophe Van Gerrewey in “A Weissenhofsiedlung for Amsterdam” (Anyone, 2018) or Lara Schrijver in “Stubborn Modernity, IJ-plein Amsterdam” (OASE, 2015). While these are significant contributions, they do not delve into the design of the dwellings, developing questions related to commissioning, process, or precedents. This study offers a new analysis of the project with an emphasis on housing design: not only on their novel interpretation of modern tradition at the time of their conception, but on the inherent and unexpected domesticity of their typological proposals today. ... Read more

Pasados-presentes para un contexto afectivo: Catálogo de la exposición. Conjuntos empáticos. Serie: Inéditos. Madrid, España, Fundación Montemadrid 2021. ISBN: 978-84-09-30740-1 ... Read more

Rem Koolhaas/OMA carried out the study for De Koepel prison throughout a decade (1979–1988). However, only its initial stages (1979–1980) were disclosed and have been investigated. The hypothesis presented in this article suggests that Koolhaas implemented his —then— recent thesis present in Delirious New York (1978) on “life in the metropolis” and the “Culture of Congestion” in the conception and design of this project. Thus, this article has the aim of examining —by means of the documents compelling the entire period of the study— how the project suggested transforming the domesticity of De Koepel prison into a “social condenser” of the contemporary metropolis. By doing so, it makes it possible to consider the role of this project within the first decade of Koolhaas' career as an architect (1978–1989), and to establish that Delirious New York is, in fact, the theory on which it was based on when first conceived. This project anticipated the strategy and the methodology he implemented, at a later time, in other projects, offering a different perspective. On this occasion, this diagrammatic investigation took place in Bentham's Panopticon; reason why, he was then able to develop the reflections on heterotopias and prisons carried out by Foucault. ... Read more

Mi investigación se basa en la idea de que la noción de domesticidad es a la vez complementaria y opuesta a la vivienda de la modernidad. En este sentido, la tesis examina en qué medida incluir esta noción en el análisis de la arquitectura vivienda puede desestabilizar sus bases. Demostrando que el estudio de la domesticidad puede ser útil para articular la reconceptualización de la vivienda. ... Read more

Doctoral research by the author published in the book PhD CULT, which includes the contributions of doctoral students and doctors who contributed around the Doctoral Meetings (formerly PhDfest), a training activity of the PD in Advanced Architectural Projects, to which add more general reflections on doctoral research. ... Read more

This article focuses on the project for the renovation of a Panopticon prison in Arnhem, the Netherlands (1979–1980), designed by Rem Koolhaas/OMA. The analysis of its reception shows that, despite being well known, it has been little studied and discussed, and although it was not built, it had an impact on prison architecture. It seems appropriate to tackle it now because the Koepelgevangenis (dome prison) of Arnhem has gained current relevance due to plans for it to be turned into a hotel. The renovation project for the Koepelgevangenis explicitly shows the presence of Foucault’s ideas on power and how these ideas exerted significant influence on the works carried out by Koolhaas. For Foucault, the Panopticon prison, such as the Koepelgevangenis, was the paradigmatic example of what he called the “disciplinary society”. Domesticity “behind bars” suggests that prisons can also be understood as domestic spaces. Moreover, it could be said that for Koolhaas, this Panopticon prison was a social condenser or a hotel for voluntary or involuntary prisoners. As a prison or as a hotel, it can also be interpreted as Foucault’s heterotopia, the intervention thus acquiring a new meaning which anticipated the future of this unique building. ... Read more

This research explores the paradoxes of domesticity in the Begijnhof. These architectural ensembles can be analysed as a different medieval hybrid type, as cities in their own right as well as cities within cities. They emerged in the European medieval cities in the thirteenth century and were inhabited by the Beguines for almost eight centuries. This research aims to move towards a more architectural and gender perspective by retrieving, revising and relating this to the work done by other researchers. It is possible to find in the past, the emergence of a new situation where women break with the way of life based on the nuclear family and who have the will to transform the spatial conditions they inhabit —the house and the city that they have inherited from established urban form. This research intends to demonstrate how women were effective in this and the fact that the Begijnhof human-space relationship occurred with a gendered perspective. Two issues are analysed which reinforced each other: the changes they made in the spatial properties of the places they lived in; and the multiple uses that were in the Begijnhoven. This research shows how women updated the existing domesticity by means of the Begijnhof in the Middle Ages. Some of the architectural strategies employed in the Begijnhof contribute to delving into the complex genealogy of the domesticity of the house and the Western city, and conclusively to human thought so that it is not only construed from the masculine experience. The Begijnhof is a paradigmatic case of transformation of the existing city – becoming more than a gated community, whereby women introduced other ways of inhabiting within the city: the space of intimacy extends from the house to the city, within the city. These complexes might be placed as a precedent for these institutions that emerged In the Enlightenment grouped by the notion of heterotopias, such as prisons and hospitals, which are connected genealogically to monasteries and convents. ... Read more