The current housing crisis calls for creative solutions, but the primacy of the market seems to leave little room for truly innovative initiatives. Between 1968 and 1980, by contrast, there were plenty of experiments in housing design, made possible in part by the then Ministry of Housing and Spatial Planning. They led to a wide range of alternatives to the uniformity of the mass housing of the time.

This edition of DASH takes the historical Experimental Housing Programme as an inspiring starting point in a search for alternative housing forms, typologies and construction methods. It highlights appealing Dutch examples, such as Aldo van Eyck and Theo Bosch’s ground-breaking Onder de Bogen in Zwolle and Abe Bonnema’s Vier Vier kanten in Alkmaar, complemented by exceptional examples from abroad: from Sweden, Great Britain, Spain, Australia, Israel, Hong Kong and Singapore.

Interviews with architecture historian Mieke Dings and former Dutch Government Architect Floris Alkemade explore the challenges and opportunities for housing renewal driven by a proactive government and creative market players. ... Read more

Our contemporary service economy calls the divide between living and working, one of the dogmas of modernist urbanism, into question. People increasingly work from home, in dwellings that were never designed for this purpose.

De scheiding tussen wonen en werken, een van de dogma’s van de modernistische stedenbouw, staat met de hedendaagse diensteneconomie ter discussie. Steeds meer mensen werken vanuit huis, in woningen die nooit voor dit doel zijn ontworpen. ... Read more

Following the large-scale production of new buildings in the second half of the twentieth century and the lull of the economic crisis, a new practice is emerging. Finding ways to reuse the existing building stock plays an important part in this. In the quest for a more sustainable use of resources and social capital, this focus on the transformation of the existing housing stock is a promising task for architects and developers. In the Netherlands, all eyes are on the postwar housing that, built in the reconstruction period, is due for an overhaul on technical grounds alone. This challenge is not new. Social change has gone hand in hand with adaptation of the housing stock for centuries. This DASH brings the
current challenge into historical and international perspective, with essays that shed light on the subject from different stand points as well as newly documented examples – from Diocletianus’s palace in Split to the Albany apartment complex in London and recent projects such as the klushuizen (DIY houses) on U.J. Klarenstraat in Amsterdam. ... Read more