Housing the Student

Authors

  • Dick van Gameren TU Delft, Architecture and the Built Environment
  • Paul Kuitenbrouwer TU Delft, Architecture and the Built Environment
  • Harald Mooij TU Delft, Architecture and the Built Environment

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.7480/dash.10.4891

Abstract

Student housing is back on the agenda. At breathtaking speed, politicians, developers, architects and constructing parties are trying to reduce the serious shortage of residential space for young people and students that currently exists in almost all Dutch university towns. And in these times of malaise in the construction industry, new players are now also lining up to get a piece of the pie, alongside the traditional housing foundations and corporations.

The concept for this new architectural task is often simple: identical, independent units with their own mini-kitchen and minibathroom are the building blocks that are stacked and connected until the building envelope has been filled to the desired level. They feature a communal entrance, bicycle storage space, and perhaps a few facilities, and often a striking façade to assert a unique identity. This is an efficient industry that allows large numbers of units to be built well and quickly.

This architectural task is as topical as it is timeless. Ever since educational institutions began attracting young people from a wider environment, housing and education have gone hand in hand with a period of personal and intellectual growth. Through the centuries, various models have arisen for this purpose, in different countries and in different cultures: from students living with professors or in lodging houses, to the Anglo-Saxon college and campus, or the continental, urban residential buildings that were often under the auspices of religious institutions.

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.

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.

Harald Mooij, TU Delft, Architecture and the Built Environment

Harald Mooij studied architecture and building technology at Delft University of Technology and at the Istituto Universitario di Architettura di Venezia (IUAV). He is an architect in The Hague and is currently involved in various projects, including housing. He has been a lecturer and researcher at Delft University of Technology in the Chair of Architecture and Dwelling since 2004. He writes regularly for professional journals in the Netherlands and abroad, is co-editor of DASH and co-author of the book Housing Design: A Manual, published in 2008 (English edition in 2011).

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Published

2020-05-15

How to Cite

van Gameren, D., Kuitenbrouwer, P., & Mooij, H. (2020). Housing the Student. DASH | Delft Architectural Studies on Housing, 6(10), 1–3. https://doi.org/10.7480/dash.10.4891

Issue

No. 10 (2014): Housing the Student

Section

Editorial