An interior with a flexible module package comprising 3 wall panels and 2 interior volumes, part of a pilot project for expanding the Ommoord district in Rotterdam. Stichting Architecten Research (SAR, Architects’ Research Foundation), directed by John Habraken. Architect: H. Maaskant. Photo: NAI Collection, SAR Archive, via Flikr; no known copyright restrictions.“When considering the housing of the future, we should not try to forecast what will happen, but try to make provision for what cannot be foreseen. The uncertainty of the future itself must be the basis on which present decisions are made.” Thus wrote John Habraken in his first book, Supports: An Alternative to Mass Housing, published in Dutch in 1961 and in English in 1972.
Cassim Shepard explores Habraken’s work in “Mass Support,” recently published in Places, where he observes that Habraken “saw the potential of industrialized building to foster flexibility in housing design and increase inhabitants’ agency in decision-making about their own homes.”
Read Shepard’s “Mass Support” here.
In 1965, Habraken founded the SAR (Foundation for Architectural Research) in Eindhoven. Out of the work initiated by the SAR emerged the term “Open Building,” signifying processes that “increase the capacity of the built environment to accommodate diverse uses and incremental change across project types over time.” The promulgation of this mode of design and construction is the mission of the Council on Open Building, which is also featured in this season of arcCA DIGEST.
