Homeless City

Abstract

De-centralised policies and care-focused homeless support in the Netherlands has led to an over-simplified definition of homelessness in Rotterdam, where the gemeente fails to recognise and address some of it’s most vulnerable groups. Through literature reviews, interviews with actors from the homeless sector, and observations and conversations conducted during voluntary shifts at a homeless shelter; this thesis analyses the pathways into and out of homelessness in Rotterdam, identifying the groups experiencing similar prejudice or treatment, and evaluating the means necessary to end their homelessness. This is compared against the existing services available across Rotterdam to understand the social support system as a whole, and the role architecture has and should have in helping the homeless. This thesis then identifies two groups: EU labour migrants and sofa-sleepers, as potentials for non-care based support as part of a symbiotic community structure, centred around a temporary, demountable, transitional housing scheme. A detailed building programme ensures activation of the ex-homeless and integration of the public through third spaces on the active ground floor plinth. The first floor houses the ex-homeless units which are derived through a process of self-build technologies and open building principles. The temporary city represents a reformed, more humanistic image of homelessness; one that challenges the ‘us’ versus ‘them’ dichotomy, because it illustrates the great lengths we’d all go through to create a home.