Francine Houben and Dick van Gameren participate in International Social Housing Festival
15.06.2017 - Events
Mecanoo will share its extensive knowledge on and experience with social housing during two events of the International Social Housing Festival 2017. On Friday, June 16, Design and Research Director and TU Delft professor Dick van Gameren will be a speaker at the symposium ‘A Right to the City, a Right to Housing’ at Het Nieuwe Instituut in Rotterdam. On Sunday, June 18, Creative Director Francine Houben will participate in a panel discussion called 'City of Comings and Goings' hosted at Museum Het Schip in Amsterdam. On Tuesday, June 20, Dick van Gameren will present in the workshop ‘Social Housing from Ground Zero: East Asian Experiences against the Dutch background’ which also takes place in Het Ship.
Bringing together a range of international scholars and designers, 'A Right to the City, a Right to Housing’ frames housing design as a spatial-political question related to the ones of inclusiveness and diversity. It aims to combine reflective and projective views with socially conscious and activist outlooks. Dick van Gameren will give a lecture about the planning and design of Thamesmead, the Brutalist housing estate in south-east London, and Mecanoo’s work for its future restructuring.
Other speakers include Kenny Cupers (University of Basel), Anne Kockelkorn (ETH Zurich), Jörg Stollmann (TU Berlin), René Boer (Failed Architecture), and Mirjana Milanovic (DRO Amsterdam). The event is organised by the Jaap Bakema Study Centre and connected to the research project and exhibition ‘The Architecture of Appropriation’ currently on show at Het Nieuwe Instituut in Rotterdam.
‘A City of Comings and Goings’ deals with the ways countries handle housing for refugees and the wider problem concerning the flexibility and absorption capacity of cities. Isolating the refugee crisis as a temporary situation ignores the permanence and regularity of migration. How may cities better adapt to a phenomenon that has always shaped and defined urban development and will continue to do so in the future?
Organised by Crimson architectural historians, the panel discussion will be preceded by presentations on Aarhus (Denmark), Prato (Italy), Vienna (Austria) and London (UK). Other participants in the panel include Achmed Baadoud (Stadsdeel Nieuw-West), Perry Hoetjes (Stadgenoot), Cihan Bugdaci (Gentlemen A.R.T.), Haiko Meijer (Onix), Payman Hanifi-Moghaddam (Seedz Rotterdam), Goof van Dormolen (VluchtelingenWerk Nederland), Desirée Uitzetter (BPD), Hassnae Bouazza (journalist), and Arna Mackic (Studio LA).
The workshop 'Social Housing from Ground Zero’ questions what can be learned from experiences and lessons on developing and designing social rental housing in South Korea, Taiwan and The Netherlands. Dick van Gameren will speak about his research which focuses on the problems of building affordable housing in rapidly expanding cities across Africa and Asia, as well as Mecanoo’s work on social housing in Kaohsiung, Taiwan.
The event is organised by Amsterdam Federation of Housing Associations (AFWC), the Seoul Social Housing Center, and the Social Housing Advocacy Consortium. Other speakers include Jeroen van der Veer, (AFWC), Kyungho Choe, (Seoul Social Housing Center), Peng Yang-Kae, (The Organization of Urban Re-s, Social Housing Advocacy Consortium), Jeroen Atteveld (Heren 5 architects), Professor Marja Elsinga (TU Delft), Professor Yi-Ling Chen (University of Wyoming, Visiting Scholar of the University of Amsterdam), and Hui-Hsin Liao (MVRDV).
The International Social Housing Festival is a global celebration of the long tradition of decent, affordable housing for all aiming to generate convincing responses to current and future challenges. It consists of a series of events, exhibitions, meetings, field visits, community activities and much more from June 13 to June 21, 2017.