On Friday, 6 March, we kicked off My Own Public Housing, a 3-day studio exploring what makes public housing not just efficient, but truly livable and future-oriented. After lectures by Beatriz Ramo (
@star_strategies_architecture ), Michelle Provoost and Jurriën van Duijkeren (
@common_practice ), we stepped into Rotterdam to learn from the city itself. From the compact ingenuity of The Cabanon to the beloved affordable dwellings of the demolition-facing Pompenburg building, to the social labyrinth of the Heliport complex, each stop revealed how housing reflects shifting needs and possibilities.
On the second day, participants turned inward, analysing their own homes. By redrawing and rethinking their floor plans, they examined how housing can adapt over time, balancing flexibility of use and the needs of different households, now and in the future. Discussions quickly moved beyond square meters, questioning how much space we really need, what makes a dwelling feel fair, what soft qualities can compensate for a lack of space and how a dwelling type can act as a future-proof “building block” within the urban fabric.
On the final day, the focus shifted to a speculative case study at Heemraadsplein - an open urban space with layered historical and social meaning in a currently prosperous neighbourhood. Participants projected their previously developed dwelling types onto the site, accommodating 300-400 new inhabitants while testing how public housing could be embedded within the existing fabric. Working across scales, they developed intuitive masterplans addressing densification, collectivity, adaptability and urban inclusivity. The proposals, stemming from meaningful typology, lived experience and expectations, were diverse and took radical turns, revealing the tension between the scale of the dwelling and that of the city.
