Let's Be R€al
A NEW COLLECTIVE ON THE BLOCK
A two-week studio exploring new development strategies for collective affordable housing in Rotterdam with Urban Think Tank (Alfredo Brillembourg and Tessa Steenkamp) and Crimson Historians & Urbanists, taking place at 16 (online) and from 19 – 29 October 2020 in Rotterdam.
While city centres all over the world are increasingly popular for living, working and tourism, housing has become scarce and real estate prices have skyrocketed. In Rotterdam, like in many other cities, it has become extremely difficult to find an affordable house. Although coming from a long tradition of rent controlled social housing in the Netherlands, the neo-liberal policy of recent years has left housing corporations paralyzed and curtailed their possibilities to invest. This has led to a structural shortage of affordable housing, especially in the city centres.
Project developers and real estate firms jump into this gap, with living-as-a-service concepts for single or double households such as the Student Hotel, OurDomain or Change=, which combine micro apartments with communal facilities and data-driven services for those who can afford it. Although add-on services and shared spaces could potentially facilitate flexibility and tailormade homes, today’s quest for efficiency seems to lead mostly to standardised solutions, attracting predominantly short stay residents. People who are seeking to build up a life in the city and who are looking for long term housing solutions, are often forced to rent for top marked prices, which is only within reach for the lucky few. Others have to find a house on the city’s fringes or in neighbouring towns, which might eventually lead to segregation.
‘Let’s get real!’ explores -as realistic as possible- if it is still possible to create actionable living spaces for affordable rents. We will do so by means of a collective effort. Participants will form a collective of would-be inhabitants who together model the financial and programmatic conditions as a starting point for an alternative development strategy. Can we target a mixture of populations and programs? Can we share facilities? Can we combine people with and without money? Can we submit our labour to ‘pay’ in kind? Can we use new models to diversify instead of standardize? And most importantly: which digital and financial development strategies can we develop to create affordable and attractive collective housing?
REGISTER NOW
Regular tickets are available for 500 euro. Student tickets are available for 400 euro. The course is subject to Corona measures. We will determine in September 2020 whether the course can take place. You can register for this studio by sending an email to info@schoolforthecity.nl The payment should be completed by invoice two weeks before the start of the course. For practical reasons, a maximum of 15 participants can take part in this course.
Course Structure
For this studio, the Independent School for the City will collaborate with architect Alfredo Brillembourg and experience designer Tessa Steenkamp of the Urban Think Tank. We will build upon their worldwide experience of developing affordable housing, the UTT-research on the Torre David in Caracas, Venezuela, the ‘Empower Shack’-housing in Khayelitsha, Cape Town, as well as the work of the School’s co-founders Crimson Historians & Urbanists in the WiMBY!-project in Hoogvliet, the Netherlands. This studio aims to incorporate meaningful social programs that enliven the potential project with the sociological best practice in design and housing. The focus of this studio is not the aesthetics of a building, but the development of strategies that make the development of collective affordable housing possible. A background in architecture is not necessary, but an affinity with housing is, as well as with active participatory engagement. Skills in communication, finance or political lobbying might also come in handy!
During the first days of the studio, participants will be introduced to the Rotterdam housing market, its contemporary challenges and its affordable housing legacy. In a relatively short period of time, we will get presentations of possible financial models and discuss which model we will use. We will then collectively develop a speculative sketch design and programme of requirements for a mixed-use community of about 80 households and additional facilities on a given location in Rotterdam. Each person will bring in his own requirements and (financial) capacities and contribute to the collective sum of wishes and limitations. Using these data in an UTT-designed modelling platform, the participants will then combine the programmatic puzzle with the constructive framework of the building.
The course will result in a proposal: a prototype for a collective building including a spatial sketch, a financial model and ideas for the social life and interaction of the collective. The presentation will include an illustrated ‘letter to the mayor’ as a collective manifesto to explain what is needed to truly realize affordable housing in Rotterdam. This studio is open for everyone, for designers and architects as well as historians, journalists, anthropologists, artists, urbanists.
Tutors
Alfredo Brillembourg
Alfredo Brillembourg was born in New York, where he studied architecture at Columbia University. He undertook his master’s degree at the Central University of Venezuela after which he co-founded the Urban Think Tank - an interdisciplinary design practice dedicated to high-level research and design on a variety of subjects concerned with contemporary architecture and urbanism in complex environments. Notable projects include the Caracas Metrocable, the Vertical Gym typology, and more recently the documentary and publication on Torre David – a 45-storey unfinished office tower in Caracas that has become a node for the study of informal vertical communities. Brillembourg has taught at Columbia University, where he co-founded the Sustainable Living Urban Model Laboratory (S.L.U.M. Lab), and held the chair for Architecture and Urban Design at ETH Zurich.
Mike Emmerik
Mike Emmerik is school coordinator of the Independent School for the City and partner at Crimson Historians & Urbanists. He is educated as an urban designer at the Delft University of Technology and subsequently worked in the Faculty of Architecture as a teacher and researcher within the Chair of Design as Politics. Mike took part in various research and design projects at the intersection of urban development and policymaking and is affiliated with the Dutch Board of Government advisors from which he advises the national government and local authorities about issues related to urbanisation and mobility.
Michelle Provoost
Michelle Provoost is head of the Independent School for the City, co-founder of Crimson Historians and Urbanist, and director of the International New Town Institute. She is an architectural historian specialised in urban planning history, postwar architecture and contemporary urban development. Michelle teaches at various universities in the Netherlands and abroad and continues to be in great demand as a public speaker. She lectures regularly throughout Europe, Asia, Africa and the United States, and has been involved in many municipal, national and private committees and juries.
Tessa Steenkamp
Tessa Steenkamp is an urban interaction designer, designing interactions within cities rather than with screens. She trained as an industrial designer in Eindhoven’s University of Technology, and later specialised in Emergent Technologies and Design at the AA School of Architecture in London. Tessa is a digital designer at Urban Think Tank, and experience designer at UNSense – daughter company of architecture firm UNStudio, where she explores technology as a tool for humanising the built environment. Previously, she set up ‘OpenStad’ for the city of Amsterdam: a government innovation programme developing new, digital tools for collective decision making, giving residents more insight in and power over their direct living environments.
Wouter Vanstiphout
Wouter Vanstiphout is an architectural historian and researcher who has written extensively on urbanism and spatial politics. He is part of the Deans Team of Independent School for the City and founding partner of Crimson Historians & Urbanists. He holds the chair Design & Politics at the TU Delft, which is exploring, researching and defining the boundaries, commonalities and tensions between the fields of politics and design. As a practitioner he has directed the renewal of the Dutch industrial satellite town of Rotterdam: Hoogvliet and advises municipalities, the national government, housing corporations and Project Developers on matters relating to urban renewal, cultural heritage and spatial and urban politics. From 2012 to 2016, he was a member of the national advisory council on the environment and infrastructure (RLI).
Course Schedule
Friday 16 October 2020
Online Prelude: 'Taking Back Housing' - International online symposium at the Independent School for the City, which deals with the possibilities of creating affordable housing through housing cooperatives.
Monday 19 October 2020
10:00 – 11:00 Welcome and general introduction by the Independent School for the City
11:00 – 12:00 Lecture by Alfredo Brillembourg and Tessa Steenkamp
12:00 – 13:00 Lecture on the history and present of affordable housing in Rotterdam by Crimson
13:00 – 14:00 Lunch break (on own occasion)
14:00 – 17:00 Excursion: Icons of affordable housing
Tuesday 20 October 2020
10:00 – 12.00 Lecture on different financial development models
12.00 – 13.00 Group discussion on finances
13:00 – 14:00 Lunch break (on own occasion)
14:00 – 16:30 Teamwork: discussion on finances and programme of requirements
16:30 – 18:00 Lecture by Nanne de Ru (Powerhouse/Red Company)
Wednesday 21 October
10:00 –13:00 Teamwork on programme of requirements and sketch design
13:00 – 14:00 Lunch break (on own occasion)
14:00 – 18:00 Teamwork on programme of requirements and sketch design
18:00 – 19:00 Dinner break (on own occasion)
19:00 – 20:00 Lecture by Alfredo Brillembourg
Thursday 22 October
10:30 – 12:00 Presentation of programme and sketch design
13:00 – 18:00 Field trip to various architectural projects in Rotterdam South.
Friday 23 October
10:00 – 11:00 Conversation on development strategies
11:00 – 13:00 Teamwork on development strategy
13:00 – 14:00 Lunch break (on own occasion)
14:00 – 18:00 Teamwork on development strategy
Monday 26 October
10:00 – 13:00 Teamwork on development strategy
13:00 – 14:00 Lunch break (on own occasion)
14:00 – 18:00 Teamwork on development strategy
Tuesday 27 October
10:00 – 13:00 Teamwork on development strategy
13:00 – 14:00 Lunch break (on own occasion)
14:00 – 18:00 Progress presentations on development strategy
Wednesday 28 October
10:00 – 13:00 Collective discussion 'Letter to the Mayor'
13:00 – 14:00 Lunch break (on own occasion)
14:00 – 18:00 Finalize development strategy and update sketch design
Thursday 29 October
10:00 – 13:00 Prepare for presentation
13:00 – 14:00 Lunch break (on own occasion)
14:00 – 15:00 Prepare for presentation
15:00 – 16:00 Presentation of final results
16.00 – 18.00 Public discussion on affordability of housing
