Housing Exhibitions

Authors

  • Dick van Gameren TU Delft, Architecture and the Built Environment
  • Frederique van Andel TU Delft, Architecture and the Built Environment

Abstract

The many housing exhibitions of the past 100 years attest to the ongoing search for the ideal home. Housing exhibitions are an excellent example of research by design. They are manifestos that try to give answers to current social issues and introduce new ideals, but at the same time they also present concrete housing designs. The temporary or permanent presence of the object itself – the dwelling or the residential building – makes the housing exhibition an exceptional instrument. Actually building these experimental designs at full size not only makes them visible, but also enables them to be visited, by both peers and laymen. And finally, they are subjected to the ultimate test: actual habitation.

This issue of DASH provides an overview of housing exhibitions from the past, present, and future. Their corresponding reflections and manifestos are also considered in further detail. Many themes still appear to be very current, and a number of ideals appear again and again in different forms.

The Internationale Bauausstellung (IBA) in Hamburg, which is still open, is organized around a number of themes. Some of these themes are familiar from previous exhibitions, such as the adaptable home, affordable housing and the urban-planning anchoring of housing and residential buildings. But there are also themes that have emerged in recent years, such as the sustainable home (minimal use of energy and materials) and homes on the water (climate change). IBA Hamburg is the final part of the project documentation in this issue of DASH, which shows a wide panorama of approaches in ten different projects. Of these ten projects, nine can still be seen, and are still inhabited.

Author Biographies

Dick van Gameren, TU Delft, Architecture and the Built Environment

Dick van Gameren is dean and full professor at the Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment of Delft University of Technology, and partner at Mecanoo architecten in Delft, the Netherlands. Combining his work as an architect with a professorship, Van Gameren maintains a critical approach to design by lecturing, researching and publishing. In 2007, Van Gameren won the prestigious Aga Kahn Award for the design of the Dutch Embassy in Ethiopia. In 2008, Van Gameren founded the book series DASH (Delft Architectural Studies on Housing) and is since then editor in chief. At TU Delft. He leads the Global Housing Study Centre and is also board member of the Archiprix foundation, of the Jaap Bakema Study Centre in Rotterdam and of the Amsterdam based AMS Institute. He is also a member of the TU Delft Global Initiative Steering Committee.

Frederique van Andel, TU Delft, Architecture and the Built Environment

Frederique van Andel holds a Master’s degree in both urban planning and architecture from Delft University of Technology. She worked for Mecanoo architecten and DP6 architectuurstudio in Delft, and lived in Barcelona where she worked with architect Toni Gironès. Since 2006, Frederique is a researcher and lecturer in the Global Housing research group of the Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment of TU Delft. Her main topic of interest is affordable housing for growing cities in the Global South. Frederique curated the exhibition ‘Global Housing – Affordable Dwellings for Growing Cities’ (2016) with venues in Delft and Addis Ababa. She is editor of the book series DASH (Delft Architectural Studies on Housing) and coordinates and edits the online Platform for Affordable Dwelling (PAD). Frederique teaches Master courses on Global Housing Design and Bachelor courses on Plan Analysis. She is project manager for the research project ‘Addis Ababa Living Lab: Creating Resilient Dwelling Clusters for Urban Resettlement in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia’, funded by the Dutch Research Council and TU Delft (2019-2023).

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Published

2018-06-01

Issue

No. 09 (2013): Housing exhibitions

Section

Editorial