The Why Factory MSc1 Design Studio 2017-2018

OnTheGo
A Dream Home for Populations on the Move

From refugee camps to slums, from Airbnb accommodation to housing crises in rich global cities, the message is clear: movement is a topic that architects must understand and respond to. Capitalism’s response to such pressing housing needs often envisages micro-dwellings as part of the solution. However, such accommodation may risk legitimizing a “new normal” of tiny, substandard homes that can hardly satisfy the users’ desires.

Migrant workers, expats, economical or political refugees, temporary scholars, exchange students, mobile workforce…. As humans leave their homes in search of work, land, education, safety, and opportunity, the design of our cities needs to facilitate migration, welcome temporality, question the essence of what we can consider home. What kind of design can offer assistance to populations on the move?

OnTheGo  wants to challenge the “new normal”. On that score, OnTheGo  will ask students to design a housing block capable of accommodating the different needs of each of its temporary residents. We want to test the capacity of a housing block to evolve over time, in real time, as newcomers arrive and old comers depart.  The project is interested in finding intelligent and innovative solutions for ever changing environments and maximum customisation within a very constrained envelope. The constructive solutions for facilitating real time spatial transformations will be part of the core of the proposal. To do so, students will be supported by the Building Technology Department.

OnTheGo will challenge students to reflect on the problematic of maximum desires and pressing needs.  What sort of organizing principle is needed in order to accomplish a 100% adaptability in real time to ever changing demands of temporary users? How can time be taken into account to use the maximum potential of space resources? Can we think of game software that is able to accommodate different temporary modes of accommodation?

After our projects Egocity and Wegocity, The Why Factory wants to keep investigating the potentials of desire-based design processes, capable of introducing the residents’ wishes in the construction and adaptation of housing and the city. If Egocity and Wegocity focused on the construction of the permanent dwelling that fulfilled one’s ultimate dreams, OnTheGo  will explore modes of temporary living capable to adapt–in real time- to a vast array of comers and goers.

OnTheGo  is organized jointly with the Illinois Institute of Technology. Students from IIT Chicago will spend their Fall semester in Delft and will work together with MSc1 students.

The Why Factory MSc1 Design Studio 2017-2018
in collaboration with the Illinois Institute of Technology, Chicago, US
Professor: Winy Maas
Tutors: Felix Madrazo, John Manaves
Future Models Seminar: Paul de Ruiter

( Image: Niels Baljit, Shared Block )

Related