Back to School with… Andrea Prins #1

Affordable homes for all? Social Housing between crisis and creativity

After being ignored for a long time, the lack of affordable, social housing in the Netherlands has become ubiquitous. In the current debate, most of the attention is focused on numbers: too few homes are being built compared to what should be needed. High construction costs are used as an argument to make social housing seem like an unprofitable investment. Moreover, there is a maze of rules that people must navigate to qualify for social housing. This narrowing perspective on numbers and regulations, overlooks something important: the resident and the experience of habitation itself. As a result, many (young) people do not even consider living in a social project. Not only is social housing discouragingly scarce, it also suffers from a negative image. In this series we discuss these issues from different perspectives.  What do decent spatial floor plans look like? What do decent spatial floor plans look like? What could, and should, the term “social” encompass? And why do we know so little about alternatives to home ownership?

On this first evening, we will explore compact, affordable and spatially attractive apartment floor plans with Beatriz Ramo, Fenna Haakma Wagenaar and Job Floris, thereby countering the pitfalls of unhealthy minimalism. 

In her talk, Beatriz Ramo will explore the paradox at the heart of contemporary housing production: at a time when households are more diverse than ever, housing has become increasingly uniform and standardised. While households evolve in response to changing lifestyles - single parents, blended families, flat-sharing communities, unemployed young adults, senior citizens requiring assistance, intergenerational living, remote workers, or young adults temporarily returning to their parents - housing has remained stuck in a one-size-fits-all approach. Today’s homes are little more than standardised "containers," shaped by regulations and budget constraints, rather than reflecting the rich variety of their inhabitants’ needs. To illustrate that alternatives are possible, Beatriz will talk about her project START - a housing research project in Ivry-sur-Seine, near Paris, designed to adapt to its inhabitants' evolving lifestyles. It prioritizes flexibility, allowing homes to expand for new children, shift layouts for extra bedrooms, or convert unused spaces into rentable units. The 22,863 m² project embraces modern living needs, including intergenerational cohabitation and shared custody arrangements in five buildings ranging from 12 to 18 floors.

About the speakers

Beatriz Ramo
Beatriz Ramo is a Spanish architect and urbanist living in The Netherlands. In 2005 she founded STAR strategies + architecture in Rotterdam. STAR is a practice dealing with architecture in all its forms and is interested in all topics directly or indirectly related to architecture.  STAR has won prizes in architecture and urban competitions internationally and remains continuously active in research and writings. STAR has been published worldwide in more than forty countries and exhibited at centres of renown.

Fenna Haakma Wagenaar
Fenna Haakma Wagenaar is an architect and chief designer at the municipality of Amsterdam. Previously, she worked at the Architecture and Urbanism Unit of the Greater London Authority, where she developed the London Housing Design Guide that aimed to improve the quality of housing in the city.

Job Floris
Job Floris is an architect and co-founder of MONADNOCK - a Rotterdam based practice, designing, researching, writing and making discourse within the field of architecture, urbanism, interior and staging. Job was head of the Master’s degree course Architecture at the Rotterdam Academy for Architecture and Urbanism from 2010 till 2018, and a guest-professor at the EPFL-ENAC in Lausanne, at the Laboratoire de Construction et Conservation between 2019 and 2021.

Andrea Prins
Andrea Prins is an independent Rotterdam-based researcher, essayist and academic lecturer. She investigates and writes about spatiality and the impact of spatial decisions made explicitly or implicitly by politicians, economists and planners on people’s life. Before starting her independent practice, Andrea worked as an architect, architectural historian, and business manager in the Netherlands and Germany. In 2021 she published her book Wonen, rooted in embodied field research and critical analysis of floor plan typologies.

Programme 28 January 2025

18:00 - 19:00 Doors open and dinner served

19:00 – 19:20 Introduction by Andrea Prins

19:20 – 20:15 Presentation by Beatriz Ramo on social housing floor plans in Paris + Q&A

20:15 – 20:35 Presentation by Fenna Haakma-Wagenaar

20:35 – 20:55 Presentation by Job Floris

20:55 – 21:15 Conversation with speakers and audience 

21:15 Drinks at the bar

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Back to School with... is a lecture series for which the School invites a professional guest to curate a lecture programme around one topic or question that has their urgent and great interest at this moment and to bring together different speakers to elaborate on the subject in three consecutive evening events. This event is the 1st in a series about social housing, curated by Andrea Prins. More info here