Name: Maarten Verheij
Track: Architecture
Studio: Advanced Housing Design
Year: MSc3/4 / 2025
Type: Graduation Project
Tutor: Harald Mooij, Robbert Guis, Elina Karanastasi
Description:
Contemporary social housing in the Netherlands often prioritises standardisation over progressive and imaginative design, resulting in an undesirable dullness of the housing stock. However, standardisation also offers clear benefits: reduced costs, faster construction, higher technical quality, and potential for circularity. Still, the strong focus on standardisation and its benefits comes at the expense of architectural diversity and individual living style and freedom. My project explores alternative approaches for social housing design; housing that supports diverse living conditions, favouring equitable housing over equal housing, with architectural emphasis on the uniqueness of its inhabitants. Housing that invites people to explore their style of living, that evokes a feeling of freedom of style, all the while balancing the benefits of standardisation with this added versatility.