Urban Doctors

Different from building in green fields, fysical and social structures are determining the design work on the existing city.
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Four houses and a facade theme

Under the title 'Vier Häuser und ein Fassadenthema' the German magazine Bauwelt published a review of our design for Hessenberg.
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Designing for hospitality

AIR organized the conference Designing for hospitality about the architecture of the 70-ies in Rotterdam. The conference was part of the research project R 70, for which AIR involved Catherine Visser of DaF-Architecten as guest programmer.

Hans van der Heijden is well familiair with the topic. He has set research projects at Eindhoven University and the Art Academy of Rotterdam.

At the conference Hans presented a design research project to the potentials of the Oosterflank district and defended the thesis that the problems of the 70-ies housing is the product of a weak architectural culture in which the formation of ideas, design labour and building technology were definitely separated.

Referent Herman Meijer (former chair of the Dutch Green Party, Alderman) agreed to Hans’ thesis. He even added that architectural craftmanship has been conciously neglected in the 70-ies- with all its consequences.

Download research report (Dutch only)

Blog R70

Vaartweg

The design combines the typology of the semi-detached house with a court-like layout inside the perimeter block.
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Sustainable lectures

Lidwine Spoormans organized a series of lectures about sustainability. Amongst others, Frank Bijdendijk (director of Stadgenoot) spoke about his concept for Solids.

Architecture in the fractured city

Cities get damaged and deserve to be repared. This recovery calls for a well considered integration in the city structure, for the existing city is refractory and has its own rules.
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