Reads

Scarce, ill-suited to current living needs, and burdened by stigma: social housing in the Netherlands is under pressure. But is there also reason for hope? That was the central question architect and curator Andrea Prins set out to explore when she was invited to curate a lecture series on social housing at the Independent School for the City in spring 2025. The series unfolded over three evenings, each tackling a key issue. The first focused on the search for affordable housing with well-designed, flexible floor plans. The second examined the meaning of ‘social’, moving beyond its often stigmatising association with ‘neediness’. The third evening addressed the deeply ingrained obsession with homeownership. Drawing on the insights shared during these sessions, Andrea reflects in this article on the structural challenges facing social housing today - and offers three hopeful perspectives that point toward a more just and inclusive future.

The Independent School for the City recently concluded its four-day course To See the World in a Soybean, which examined the global impacts of Rotterdam’s port economy through the lens of a single product: the soybean. By tracing the soybean’s supply chain—from deforestation and ecological devastation in Brazil to nitrogen pollution from industrial farming in Europe—the course highlighted how Rotterdam is not just a mirror of global urban trends but a powerful node in global ecological and economic systems. The port’s municipal ownership raises questions about local responsibility and the potential of citizen-led activism to effect global change. This research opens a new direction in both pedagogy and political awareness, emphasising the strategic importance of local action in a globally interconnected world. Read our full reflections here

In November 2024 the Independent School for the City held its second Fables of the Reconstruction seminar, this time focused on the rebuilding of Gaza and Ukraine from a geopolitical perspective. We looked at the global financial, economic and political context in which reconstruction plans are drawn up and how the possible reconstruction of both Gaza and Ukraine, is determined by economic structures and political patterns that are greater than the wars themselves. The wars and the resulting devastation allow for the full exploitation of underlying spatial connections between countries and even continents. This is another phenomenon typical of the reconstruction of destroyed cities and largely determines the context for urban design. Read the full essay here

In Spring 2024 the Independent School for the City organised an international symposium on demolition, or rather: on learning to live without it. What started out as a fringe statement, that was sometimes mistaken for being merely provocative but was actually deadly serious and meant to be taken entirely at face value, has now blossomed into a serious position to be taken by building owners, architects and planners alike. It argues that demolition wastes resources and embedded CO₂, while new construction worsens the problem. Inspired by Lacaton & Vassal’s 2004 manifesto, which advocated for improving rather than demolishing buildings, the symposium explored how this radical conservation ethos is now being put into practice. It challenges the norm equating progress with destruction, urging architecture to focus on adaptation over replacement. Read more here

Once upon a time Rotterdam was the most famous reconstructed city of the western world. Its modern city centre was visited by architects, planners, and dignitaries from all over the world. The reason was not just that here the first pedestrian open air shopping centre was realised, but especially the values that the sparkly new centre seemed to embody. Modernity and industry rose up from the ruins of the pre-war period of dense suffocating historic city centres. Democracy, commerce, progress, and capitalism were the new truths. Then there was the specific nature of Rotterdam’s destruction that gave it its importance: the city was bombed by the German Wehrmacht to force Holland into capitulation and was an example of the brutal threat of Nazi Germany at the beginning of the Second World War.

Reconstruction is perhaps the wrong word for the rebuilding of Rotterdam after the war; the new plan was specifically designed to... Read more