The Luxury City Apartment

Authors

  • Dick van Gameren TU Delft, Architecture and the Built Environment
  • Sebastiaan Kaal TU Delft, Architecture and the Built Environment
  • Pierijn van der Putt TU Delft, Architecture and the Built Environment
  • Paul Kuitenbrouwer TU Delft, Architecture and the Built Environment

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.7480/dash.02.4554

Abstract

In today’s economic climate with housing production at a record low, it might seem odd to devote a publication to the luxury city apartment. Yet over the past few years, this very sector is where there have been surprising innovations in housing design. While the bulk of production entails the repetition of a few standard floor plans considered adequate, we see interesting indications for the future in projects for more expensive city apartments.

A serious look at innovations regarding the city apartment is justified, if only because an important part of the housing task has shifted to the densification of existing urban space. First, we can observe that the emphasis on social housing in the twentieth century came at the expense of housing typologies for those of the middle class who led an urban lifestyle. While social housing typologies are efficient and economical, they hardly offer anything in common with, for example, having a professional practice at home, putting up guests for a shorter or longer period, or distinguishing between private and public spaces within the apartment.

Second, we are seeing the rise of new urban lifestyles, such that even in a country like the Netherlands with a relatively undeveloped tradition in apartment construction, there is a real demand for more expensive city apartments that are bigger and more luxurious than the standard three-room flat. Since the 1990s, new groups of professionals have been eager to live in the city, including internationally outsourced expats, but also families with two working parents who would rather not move to the suburbs for a child-friendly environment. Moreover, there are the empty-nesters, active seniors without children, who want to return to the city in order to enjoy the high level of services.

The liberalization of the housing market in the Netherlands has offered both opportunities and fresh obstacles. New players are trying to break into the market with contemporary housing concepts (serviced apartments in the high-end sector) but at the same time it seems that there are hardly enough incentives in a tight market to truly innovate. In the Dutch situation, it still remains a fact that producers and municipal governments determine what is to be built and that the housing consumer comes off second best. In soft housing markets like in Berlin, this proves to be very different, just as it is in cities with a rich tradition of apartment construction, urban lifestyles and private development, such as New York or Brazil.

Author Biographies

Dick van Gameren, TU Delft, Architecture and the Built Environment

Dick van Gameren is dean and full professor at the Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment of Delft University of Technology, and partner at Mecanoo architecten in Delft, the Netherlands. Combining his work as an architect with a professorship, Van Gameren maintains a critical approach to design by lecturing, researching and publishing. In 2007, Van Gameren won the prestigious Aga Kahn Award for the design of the Dutch Embassy in Ethiopia. In 2008, Van Gameren founded the book series DASH (Delft Architectural Studies on Housing) and is since then editor in chief. At TU Delft. He leads the Global Housing Study Centre and is also board member of the Archiprix foundation, of the Jaap Bakema Study Centre in Rotterdam and of the Amsterdam based AMS Institute. He is also a member of the TU Delft Global Initiative Steering Committee.

Sebastiaan Kaal, TU Delft, Architecture and the Built Environment

Sebastiaan has a vast amount of expertise in the field of housing, building reuse and the design of exhibition facilities. As an architect he was involved in the design of: Villa 4.0, Naarden; Housing Funenpark, Amsterdam and the Contemporary Realism Department in Assen. Sebastiaan’s projects lie firmly in the intersection between architecture and the interior, respecting the presence of one condition whilst solving the other. Sebastiaan graduated in 1996 from the Technical University of Delft. He now teaches at TU Delft on a regular basis and has been involved in several research projects on housing. Sebastiaan joined Mecanoo in 2013 after working for 15 years at Dick van Gameren Architects. He became an associate architect in 2014.

Pierijn van der Putt, TU Delft, Architecture and the Built Environment

Pierijn van der Putt (Eindhoven, 1973) studied Architecture at Delft University of Technology, the University of Illinois in Chicago and Drexel University in Philadelphia. He worked as an editor for Dutch architectural magazine de Architect for seven years before returning to Delft. There, in addition to being an editor for DASH (Delft Architectural Studies on Housing), he teaches academic research and architectural design for the group of Architecture and Dwelling. His particular interest lies in creative writing and in improving academic writing skills.

Paul Kuitenbrouwer, TU Delft, Architecture and the Built Environment

Paul Kuitenbrouwer graduated in 1988 as an architect from the Faculty of Architecture of Delft University of Technology. Since then he worked for, among others, Wiel Arets and Jo Coenen, for whom he was deputy supervisor of the Sphinx-Céramique site in Maastricht. In 2001 he followed Coenen, who was appointed Dutch Government Architect, to The Hague. Since 2006, he has been an assistant professor associated with the Chair of Architecture and Dwelling of Delft University of Technology; he has conducted research into high-density low-rise housing (Intense Laagbouw) and student housing (bouwjong!), teaches both Bachelor’s and Master’s degree design studios and analysis seminars with an emphasis on typology, density and the urban context, and is an editor of DASH. In addition, he has taught at the Amsterdam Academy of Architecture (2009-2012) and since 2016 teaches at the Maastricht Academy of Architecture. Since 2017, he is also a member of the Board of Examiners for Architects at The Dutch Architect’s Register Agency in The Hague.

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Published

2020-02-13

How to Cite

van Gameren, D., Kaal, S., van der Putt, P., & Kuitenbrouwer, P. (2020). The Luxury City Apartment. DASH | Delft Architectural Studies on Housing, 1(02), 1–3. https://doi.org/10.7480/dash.02.4554

Issue

No. 02 (2009): The Luxury City Apartment

Section

Editorial