In 1975, German architect Oswald Mathias Ungers took part in the “Roosevelt Island Housing", a competition sponsored by the State’s Urban Development … [Read more...]
Housing the Multitude
Since the beginning of human history the need for a house has implied latent meanings, from the bare “looking for a shelter” to the fulfillment of complex spiritual and social needs. Historically, a number of inhabiting solutions were imagined for the coexistence of individuals and families in collective dwellings, in order to provide an improvement in resource sharing, built terrain and infrastructural optimization and waste limitation.
Completely dissimilar visions of communal life and conditions of social stratification lay behind this group of projects, but all of them share the search for a density which doesn’t restrict the private sphere yet allows, in different degrees, room for shared activities destined to enhance the life of the community.
The Eastern Workers Village at Amarna (c. 1349-1332 BCE)
The Eastern Workers village at Amarna in Egypt (c. 1349-1332 BCE) was a walled settlement located in the North-East side of the city and intended for … [Read more...]
A Perfect Grid: the Roman Town of Timgad, the African Pompeii
The city of Timgad, in today's Algeria, was founded as a military settlement by Emperor Trajan around AD 100 and its original scope was to be a … [Read more...]
Understanding the Grid /1: Michel Ecochard’s Planning and Building Framework in Casablanca
French architect Michel Ecochard, also trained as an archeologist, was the director of the Morocco Department of Urban Planning from 1946 to 1952 … [Read more...]
The Narkomfin Building in Moscow (1928-29): a Built Experiment on Everyday Life
The Narkomfin Building (Dom Narkomfin) in Moscow was designed by Moisei Ginzburg and Ignatii Milinis in 1928 to host collective housing for employees … [Read more...]
Communal Living Around a Void: The Shabonos, Dwellings of the Yanomami Tribes
The shabonos (or yanos) are the traditional communal dwellings of the Yanomami tribes of Southern Venezuela and northern Brazil. They are circular … [Read more...]
The “Grand Hotel Babylon” by Adolf Loos (1923)
In 1923, Austrian and Czechoslovak architect Adolf Loos conceived the project for a terraced hotel of 700 rooms in Nice, the so-called "Grand Hotel … [Read more...]
Almost Metabolist: The New Sky Building #3 by Yoji Watanabe
The New Sky Building #3 is a 1972 project by Yoji Watanabe built in Higashi-Shinjuku, Tokyo. The building is made up of a central core, which … [Read more...]
“Habitat and the City”: Competition Entry by Neutelings, Wall, De Geyter and Roodbeen (1990)
In 1990 the "Competition Habitatge i Ciutat" (Housing and City) was promoted by the review Quaderns of Barcelona. The entry by W.J. Neutelings, A. … [Read more...]
A Prototypal House at the Bauhaus: The “Haus am Horn” by Georg Muche (1923)
The "Haus am Horn" is an experimental building erected and furnished as a part of the Weimar Bauhaus exhibition in the early summer of 1923 which had … [Read more...]
Cedric Price ‘Housing Research’ (1971) and the ‘Steel House’ (1967)
Published in a supplement of Architectural Design in 1971, this research project by architect Cedric Price is an investigation on "the good life". … [Read more...]
Ivan Leonidov’s Competition Proposal for the Town of Magnitogorsk (1930)
In 1930, the Russian architects group OSA, with Ivan Leonidov as team leader, took part in the competition of the urban design of the chemical and … [Read more...]
The House of Glass Was Suddenly All Solid Walls, A Project by Anne Holtrop (2006)
Not much happens in A.M. Homes's short story "The Weather Outside Is Sunny and Bright": the protagonist visits her Alzheimer's mother, takes a bath, … [Read more...]
The Artic City. A project by Frei Otto and Kenzo Tange
In 1971, German architect Frei Otto presented the project for a city of 40.000 inhabitants to be built in the Artic circle beneath a pneumatic dome of … [Read more...]
Musgum Mud Huts
The traditional dwellings of the Musgum tribe in Cameroun consisted of sun-dried mud huts of a shell shape. Each domestic structure (also called … [Read more...]
Steven Holl’s Bridge of Houses (1979-1982)
Throughout history bridges have been a focus of legends of every civilization. Esthetes, philosophers and poets have used the bridge as a transcendent … [Read more...]
Civilization and its Discontents According to Ben Tolman
The hyper-detailed ink-on-paper drawings by Ben Tolman depict the built environment and the effects it has on the people who inhabit it. Cities … [Read more...]
A Settlement for Equals: The Town of Biskupin in Poland
In 1933, a team from Poznan University led by Polish archaeologist professor Józef Kostrzewski, started a series of excavations close to Lake Biskupin … [Read more...]
Learning from the Casbah: Horizontal Housing Units in Rome by Adalberto Libera
Adalberto Libera's "Unità orizzontale" (Horizontal Unit) in the Tuscolano neighborhood in Rome is an experimental housing complex built in the city … [Read more...]
A City Made of Rooms : The “Neue Stadt” of Köln (1961-1964) by O.M. Ungers
In 1957 the urban planning department of Köln decided to develop a new satellite-town of 100,000 inhabitants (Neue-Stadt) in the northern … [Read more...]
Walls as Rooms /4 : The Hakka Tulou (Community Housing for Equals)
Mostly built between the 12th and the 20th centuries, the Tulou are large fortified buildings representing a specific and traditional housing type of … [Read more...]
An Ancient Example of Cluster Planning: Pit Houses and Kivas in Chaco Canyon, New Mexico
The ruins of the pueblos in Chaco Canyon in New Mexico, (villages founded by ancient Native American communities, Ancient Pueblo people, … [Read more...]
The Walled City of Shibam, a ‘Manhattan of the desert’
Sometimes ago we wrote about the walled city of Kowloon, a spontaneous, unregulated urban development near Hong Kong. Whereas that one was a … [Read more...]
