The research by a+t research group in teh book Housing Loops proposes an alternative reading of the history of housing. Rather than being organised around architectural styles or movements, it is structured through five essential conditions that define the lived experience of inhabitation: Opulence, Precarity, Dignity, Prosperity, and Fraternity.
Drawing on 178 case studies – ranging from the onset of the Industrial Revolution in the mid-eighteenth century to the second decade of the twenty-first – this critical chronology maps the evolution of collective housing in relation to the social demands of each historical period. The timeline identifies key patterns in housing design, recurring spatial loops that transcend eras, advances in construction technologies, and the transformation of the domestic unit as a nucleus of cohabitation.
In the book Housing Loops, the past and present of collective housing are represented simultaneously, revealing unexpected connections between projects and architects who, across different contexts, have shared the aspiration to offer shelter, to conceive housing as a complex artefact where form, time and space converge, and which, beyond fulfilling individual needs, seeks to emerge as a collective proposition for living together.
