Background

The origins of ‘open building,’ a term coined by Age van Randen at TU Delft in the eighties, developed from the ideas of N. John Habraken, the Dutch architect and the director of the Foundation for Architects’ Research (SAR), whose work had the specific aim of reinvigorating housing industrialization through a research agenda focused on the relationships between the profession of architecture and the housing industries, emphasizing the varied roles users could take in the process.

Specifically in his 1962 book, Supports: An Alternative to Mass Housing, Habraken combined many forward-thinking perspectives that are now widely accepted in the research and practice of architecture, urbanism and the social sciences such as:

• designing for openness, which involves
  not only capacity, but inclusivity;
  
• the recognition that many actors influence
  design and construction processes;
  
• the ongoing transformative properties of the built environment.

The conference organizers of THE FUTURE OF OPEN BUILDING have invited speakers and paper presentations to clarify how these core perspectives come together within case studies of various development typologies, as well as to challenge which directions ‘open building’ should take in the twenty-first century.