rethinking social housing game - 2024

location anywhere

year 2023

project rethinking social housing

type game

I’ve designed a game to explore the concept of degrowth—a compelling approach toward building a more sustainable, environmentally conscious society. My inspiration to focus on degrowth came from the Radius exposition on the doughnut economy, particularly the post-growth toolkit from DISNOVATION.org. In designing this project, I’ve tried to balance the roles of an activist artist with a logically grounded architect. What became apparent throughout this process was that the most vulnerable members of our communities often receive the least consideration in housing initiatives. This insight led me to explore the potential of degrowth principles to improve social housing, especially in terms of fostering community cohesion in an environmentally responsible way.

My goal with this project is to create a space for discussing both the possibilities and the challenges of applying degrowth principles to social housing. To do this, I have designed an event centered on a typical "galerij woning"—a post-war social housing unit often in need of renovation. During the event, participants will be assigned different roles, such as residents, municipal officials, or representatives from a housing corporation (wooncorporatie) or investors. Each participant will receive basic information on their character’s goals and priorities, as well as a set of possible degrowth-inspired solutions applicable to social housing.

Participants will engage in small group discussions, analyzing potential solutions from their assigned roles. Afterward, each group will share their findings in a plenary discussion, where we’ll reflect on whether the groups were able to reach a consensus on feasible solutions. The hope is that through this exercise, everyone will gain a deeper understanding of the interplay between environmental goals, social equity, and housing policy—and perhaps walk away with new ideas about what a sustainable, community-focused future could look like.