Last week, Arttenders’ Faye Ellen was invited to join forces with 5 renowned Dutch building and housing companies to work on the future of cities and environments. This quest is part of the ‘Expeditie Gratis Wonen’ (Expedition Free Housing) where AM, BAM Woningbouw, Bouwinvest, Eigen Haard and TBI WOONlab investigate and create future solutions for housing challenges. Their mutual aim is to create comfortable, affordable and durable housing for everyone in the near future.

Free Housing in the City of Later

The Expedition is divided in four teams. Each of them worked on different topics to work towards one main objective: Free Housing. Faye took part in the session called ‘Stad van Strax‘ (City of Later). In this session, the aim was to find a new balance between living in the city center and outer boroughs and the freedom of choice to do so. Via extensive brainstorm techniques, we uncovered six essential stepping stones. In combination they formed the team’s vision the essential ingredients of the future of housing.

Stimulating ownership through storytelling

Arttenders gave input on the themes involving identity, diversity and chaos. We emphasized the need of storytelling. The story that visualizes the identity of an area or street, its history and the people that inhabit it. These stories engage the users of the area, and create a firm basis for ownership and involvement in the community. And if there is no story to be told, please create one! The fictional and non-fictional stories can best be showcased using integrated applied arts. Some nice examples include the Markthal Rotterdam – Horn of Plenty and the Beurspassage (Nowaydays) – Amsterdam Oersoep in Amsterdam.

Another way to create a valuable basis for community involvement is to withstand the need of order and create rules for everyone. If there is clear freedom (Duidelijke Vrijheid), people understand what the boundaries are but still experience the freedom of autonomy. Thus a strong ownership over their housing realm.

Stories and controlled chaos result in attractive and positive areas. There, one does not feel the force to live or move somewhere else because of the lack of identity, diversity or freedom. Faye came up with nice punchlines such as: Duidelijke Vrijheid, Oost West, Wild Best and Maak Verhalen. The pictures underneath give some impressions of extensive and interesting two days in Amsterdam. We wish the involved parties lots of inspiration and wisdom to achieve their noble cause and find new business models to make Expedition Free Housing feasible for the future!

Looking for inspiration, input in brainstorms or lunch presentations in the topic of storytelling in real estate development, housing and area development? Feel free to reach out!