Global Housing
The Global Housing Group’s educational program focuses on rethinking design approaches to address housing challenges as complex, multifaceted issues tied to rapid global urbanization. Its studios prioritize analytical and project-based approaches to redesign affordable housing in low- and middle-income countries. They explore housing design as a key tool to tackle global challenges such as demographic growth, social inclusion, environmental justice, and migration, while considering both local conditions and the broader context of planetary urbanization.
Focus and approach
The Global Housing design studios emphasize cross-cultural exchanges as a central part of their pedagogical approach. A major challenge of the program is addressing cultural differences faced by students and faculty when working in foreign contexts. To address this, collaboration with local students and academic staff is crucial. This collaborative approach helps critically engage with and negotiate cultural differences, worldviews, and aspirations. The program aims to resist standardized design approaches, fostering critical awareness of evolving social relations, struggles, and experiences in a rapidly changing world.
Programme
MSc2 design studio
The MSc2 Global Housing studio challenges students to design housing projects in low- and middle-income countries experiencing rapid urbanization. Participants are tasked with exploring design solutions that critically integrate indigenous knowledge with global developments. Students are encouraged to develop their own design strategies, grounded in spatial and situational analysis of the project site. They investigate local patterns of inhabitation, urban morphology, and the connections between dwellings and lifestyles. Through methods such as design analysis and architectural ethnography, students examine the balance between individual aspirations, collective welfare, and environmental protection in their design approaches.
Programme MSc2 'Building Sustainable Tourism in Arba Minch, Ethiopia' spring semester 2025 (pdf)
Programme MSc2 'Dwelling in Buenos Aires' spring semester 2025 (pdf)
MSc3 design studio
The Global Housing Graduation Studio tackles the challenges of rapid urbanization and the global housing crisis, with a focus on low- and middle-income countries. It encourages participants to engage in cross-cultural architectural practice and critically review socio-spatial analysis and housing design methods to create urban "welfare spaces" that promote well-being, community, security, and justice. In Q2, students explore various research methods to build a collective knowledge base, followed by fieldwork at the project site to support the development of a multi-scalar housing project. In Q3 and Q4, participants refine their designs, addressing affordability, socio-economic adequacy, and materiality, combining typological innovation with effective management and technical strategies.
Programme MSc3 autumn semester 2024 (pdf)
Staff
Prof. Marina Tabassum, Dr. Nelson Mota, Ir. Frederique van Andel, Ir. Rohan Varma.
Additional information
Additional information about the projects and student work can be found here.
For detailed course descriptions, please visit the study guide:
* The MSc2 semester of the Architecture track consists of a 5 EC compulsory course and 10 EC of track-specific Architecture electives in the third quarter, followed by a 15 EC (intra)disciplinary elective in the fourth quarter, which can be an intensive architectural research and design project or an intradisciplinary elective in which you are challenged to work together with students from other tracks on overarching themes.