Housing Studies: An Open Intersectional Archive

This course advances critical tools for the analysis and projection of affordable collective housing design, examining the relevance and applicability of intersectionality theory to housing. The course looks into tendencies of modernist housing production, with a focus on Dutch traditions. Design analyses of case studies are combined with archival studies and reading literature, followed by the development of a critical intersectional archive, organised in the form of a collectively-curated exhibition. AR technology is used to develop an interactive component to assess the project's histories and qualities

The course starts with an introduction to the Dutch national collection of architecture and urban planning at the Nieuwe Instituut in Rotterdam, and a discussion of intersectionality theory including its relevance and applicability to housing design. Students will then develop analyses of selected case studies, revealing the historical and environmental circumstances of the project in relation to its cultural, material and architectural features as follows:

- Students will critically reflect on the socio-economic, political, urban and territorial contexts from which each of these projects emerged, including institutional and governance frameworks and policy-making processes;

- They will investigate how each case study and its designers are embedded in the field of housing histories and cultural production, and how this relates to particular design features (typo-morphology, composition, structure, details, materialisation, technology);

- Students will focus on how a specific form, discourse and urban situation allow for care work, maintenance and other types of labour, and how they promote or challenge notions of gender roles, from the projects conception to its afterlife.

In the last phase of the course, students will develop a critical intersectional archive, which will be organised in the form of a collectively-curated exhibition at the Faculty of Architecture, featuring the analysed case studies through research-based documentation, including graphic and textual outputs, and interactive AR technology.