Inmiddels is het bijna dertien jaar geleden dat de Faculteit Bouwkunde in september 2008 intrek nam in het grote en labyrintische, op dat moment leegstaande gebouw van de Technische Universiteit Delft aan de Julianalaan. De alles verwoestende brand van het faculteitsgebouw aan de Berlageweg in mei van dat jaar had een grote schok veroorzaakt onder alle medewerkers en studenten, en niet minder onder oud-collega’s en alumni. Tegelijkertijd kwam al vanaf de dag na de brand een buitengewone energie en daadkracht vrij, waar nog vaak aan gerefereerd wordt. Als tijdelijke oplossing voor de komende jaren werd met man en macht een plan gemaakt en uitgevoerd om het gebouw, wat bij velen bekend stond als het voormalige hoofdgebouw maar dat ooit ontworpen en gebouwd was als Scheikunde afdeling, geschikt te maken om de Faculteit Bouwkunde te huisvesten....

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.

Global Housing: Dwelling in Addis Ababa brings together essays and architectural projects that discuss housing as a key component in the social and urban development of Addis Ababa, the capital city of Ethiopia. Over the last two decades the urban landscape of Addis Ababa has been changing at a fast pace, with disruptive consequences for the physical and social fabric of the city. Housing has been one of the key factors for this transformation, affecting job creation, craftsmanship, social and spatial equity, and dwelling practices, to name but a few.

The edited volume brings together twelve architectural projects developed by graduation students from TU Delft’s Global Housing educational program that explore alternative approaches to housing design, dwelling on the challenges brought about by Africa’s urban revolution.

Divided into two sections, this richly illustrated book offers reflections on the city of Addis Ababa, its different types of traditional and contemporary housing and its recent evolution in Part 1; and portfolios of the projects designed by the students enrolled in the program in Part 2. Each portfolio is structured around a theme or issue encountered by the participants in the studio, which is developed upon in a short study. A final essay based on interviews conducted with local actors and examining the challenges set by the city’s rapid urbanization concludes this fascinating contribution to innovative architectural thought in an increasingly urbanized world.

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.

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.