Marianne Loof column
The typical distinction between design and architecture is increasingly becoming a thing of the past, as the Dutch Design Week in Eindhoven shows. The ‘Habitat’-category of the Dutch Design Awards shows designers engaging with typical architectural questions. Cases in point are also the designs made for the ‘Central Agency for the Reception of Asylum Seekers’ (COA): The Rijksbouwmeester, the chief government architect, asked designers for innovative solutions to the urgent question of housing for asylum-seekers with a temporal residence-permit.
Prototypes and scale-models of the winning plans are on display in Eindhoven. Several among the winners use modular units. Among them is Finch Buildings, whose units are entirely made of wood so that they are carbon-neutral and circular according to the spirit of time. A new generation of designers contributes brainpower to the tasks of society.
The Finch module is not only ‘Sustainable-Healthy-Circular-Smart’, but also attractively designed. This is not entirely new when it comes to emergency-housing, such as temporary classrooms for schools. In 2008, the 4th Gymnasium in Amsterdam was built from smart units that would combine construction-efficiency and reuse with architectural quality. The end product was a success, because a serious investment could be made in the reusable units.
Last month, after 8 years, the 4th Gymnasium was not carefully taken apart for use elsewhere, but demolished as ordained by the city council. A real shame. Gone millions of euros of investments, gone reuse. Innovative design abounds, but down the line commitments to life-cycle thinking are weak. Much room for improvement, I’d say!
October 2016, Cobouw.nl