De ruimte die we delen: Hoe maken we architectuur en stedenbouw politiek?

Publisher: trancity*valiz

Read online here.

[The Space We Share. How Do We Make Architecture and Urban Design Political?]

Inspired by philosopher Hannah Arendt, Hans Teerds outlines in this extended essay how the built environment conditions people and thereby has an impact on the personal and social lives of its inhabitants, as well as affects the political vitality of human communities. Architectural and urban Design intervene in a world that is shared, the world-in-common, to use a term from Arendt. Precisely that turns architecture and its related professional fields in a political practice. It is, after all, the built environment that brings people together or isolates them from each other. Therefore, especially now, against the backdrop of housing shortage, ecology crisis, aging, poverty and segregation, Teerds argues, its design must be the subject of public conversation. After offering a critical analysis of the position and practices of architecture and urban design, he formulates eight principles as assignments for designers (and their clients and commissioners), challenging them to take a political position, anabling them with their various practices to serve the world-in-common.