Back to School with… Andrea Prins
A series of three evening lectures about social housing, curated by architect and writer Andrea Prins. Taking place on 28 January, 18 February and 04 March 2025. A package for all three evenings is available for 45 euro. Tickets for the separate events cost 17,50 euro. The tickets include a simple dinner. Doors open and dinner served at 18:00. Get your tickets here
Picture by Andrea Prins from the exhibition 'Welcome Home' (DAC Kopenhagen, 2018) about home ownership and the rental market in Denmark.
A package for all three evenings is available for 45 euro. Tickets for the separate events cost 17,50 euro. The tickets include a simple dinner.
Affordable homes for all? Social Housing between crisis and creativity
After being ignored for a long time, the lack of affordable, social housing in the Netherlands has become ubiquitous. In the current debate, most of the attention is focused on numbers: too few homes are being built compared to what should be needed. High construction costs are used as an argument to make social housing seem like an unprofitable investment. Moreover, there is a maze of rules that people must navigate to qualify for social housing. This narrowing perspective on numbers and regulations, overlooks something important: the resident and the experience of habitation itself. As a result, many (young) people do not even consider living in a social project. Not only is social housing discouragingly scarce, it also suffers from a negative image. In this series we discuss these issues from different perspectives. What do decent spatial floor plans look like? What do decent spatial floor plans look like? What could, and should, the term “social” encompass? And why do we know so little about alternatives to home ownership?
About Andrea Prins
Andrea is an independent Rotterdam-based researcher, essayist and academic lecturer. She investigates and writes about spatiality and the impact of spatial decisions made explicitly or implicitly by politicians, economists and planners on people’s life. Her expertise lies at the interface between architecture, history (of ideas) and societal changes. Andrea publishes on housing and habitation, (in)hospitality of public space, social sustainability, Asian architecture, and critical writing itself. Before starting her independent practice, Andrea worked as an architect, architectural historian, and business manager in the Netherlands and Germany. In 2021 she published her book Wonen, rooted in embodied field research and critical analysis of floor plan typologies.
About Back to School with...
For Back to School with... we invite professionals, makers and (critical) thinkers from inside and outside the field of architecture and urban design to share their most current thoughts, recent questions and latest or ongoing research. For each series we ask a professional guest to design and curate a lecture programme around one topic or question that has their urgent and great interest at this moment and to bring together different speakers to elaborate on the subject in three consecutive evening events.
This program pursues no greater ambition than to stimulate and provide space to exchange and commonly learn about latest research topics from other professionals and build up new knowledge for everyone who shares our curiosity.
Programme
SESSION #1 CREATIVE COMPACTNESS. TUE 28 JAN 2025, 19:00 - 21:00 (DOORS OPEN AT 18:00)
Many people in the Netherlands suffer from (too) high housing costs. At the same time, the Dutch live relatively spacious compared to other European citizens. Proposals for more compact housing have emerged as a practical solution to lower these expenses. However, there is a serious risk that perverse market-driven approaches could distort this idea, leading to micro-units so small that they could harm the mental health of residents.
On this first evening, we will explore compact, affordable and spatially attractive apartment floor plans, thereby countering the pitfalls of unhealthy minimalism.
SESSION #2 THE MEANING OF SOCIAL. TUE. 18 FEB 2025. 19:00 - 21:00 (DOORS OPEN AT 18:00)
In the Netherlands, social housing is now primarily reserved for the poor or those in trouble - a scarce resource, burdened with stigma and prejudice against its residents. But what if "social" didn’t just mean help for individuals in need, but instead reflected a broader societal responsibility? This isn’t just wordplay; it’s a fundamental shift in perspective. Rather than viewing housing as a personal issue, it becomes a collective, socio-political priority.
On this second evening, we will look at examples from Vienna and/or Graz (Austria), where social housing is available for everyone who wants to pay a fair rent for a moderate home, making social housing a basic facility for all.
SESSION #3 HOUSING ILLITERACY. TUE. 04 MAR. 2024. 19:00 - 21:00 (DOOR OPEN AT 18:00)
The financialization of housing has been no accident – it has been a deliberate process. Many benefit from it: the government by creating a (conservative) population attached to home ownership, the construction industry which has consolidated its power position, and homeowners because of the substantial subsidies and the increasing value of their property. But the financialization of housing has also led to increasing housing inequality, making it inaccessible to an increasing number of people. Part of this also has to do with a knowledge deficit: people think that home ownership is the only housing solution - even if buying only brings misery. Call it housing illiteracy.
On this evening, we will discuss alternatives to ownership and explore what can be done about this illiteracy.