Typology: Housing Estate | Thinkpiece | Architectural Review
▻https://www.architectural-review.com/rethink/typology/typology-housing-estate/10008640.article
Source: Alamy - Prefabricated housing built under the leadership of Wolfgang Urbanski, Groß Klein estate, Rostock, mid 1970s
Source: Michel Ecochard /Aga Khan Trust - Candilis, Woods et al, Carrières Centrales, Casablanca (1951), with the bidonville to the lower right
From the green quadrangles of medieval almshouses to towering banlieues, the history of mass housing represents architecture at its most high-minded – which makes its failures all the more painful
The housing estate, whether it is built by a charity, developer, government or cooperative, is essentially a collection of dwellings disposed in space. The design of this negative space is as significant as that of the individual unit – a precept that has not always been sufficiently acknowledged. From the medieval almshouse to the blocks of Pruitt-Igoe, estate-space has changed in function and texture, coagulating and thinning with and against the space of the city and the wider territory.