A SENSE OF HOME_Patrick Roegiers

A SENSE OF HOME

What is a home?

When and where do you feel at home?

Where and when do homeless feel at home?

How is that connected to architecture?

These were some of the questions I had before starting this project. As an architect, I have a fascination for social structures and behavior which is connected to the built environment. For my graduation project, I chose the topic of homelessness because it’s a growing problem in the city of Amsterdam and there is need for change.

The speculated amount of homeless in the Netherlands has in the past seven years doubled. An estimated 34.000 people are today living in our cities but without any permanent residency. If it will continue like this, Amsterdam will be a city like London or New York where homeless has grown to a major problem.

But where to start?

I researched several topics around homelessness and I found that the information and data were not specific enough. Therefore, I decided to go on the streets myself to meet the target group as an undercover homeless. I spent several nights on the streets, exploring different regions in the city. I met a lot of homeless, each with their own stories. What I realised is that homeless people feel connected to their neighborhood in the inner city, but they do not have all the basic needs at their disposal there. To sleep, for example, they often have to turn to sheltered places outside the city, because it is forbidden to sleep on the street. They feel at home in their neighborhoods, but their neighborhoods do not provide them with a home.

I also discovered that there is a homeless network in our city. This network consists of places where they for example socialise, eat, sleep, and wash. For me it was essential to start mapping out these places for the homeless. That is how I made the first homeless map of Amsterdam, showing all the facilities available to them.

Looking at this map, it becomes clear that the homeless network is missing several links. Not only is it missing shelter within the neighborhoods of the homeless.

Facilities that offer homeless a means to meet their basic needs are scattered across the city, meaning homeless need to travel great distances every day. This is a major problem, especially for those with health issues. My idea was to improve the network by adding these missing links, thereby allowing homeless to meet their needs whilst staying in the neighborhoods where they feel at home.

Basic needs are essential for any human being, with a good night’s rest is the most important to mental and physical well being. However, after living on the street for some time, homeless who are eventually assigned a house can very easily fall back into their old structure, and eventually losing their new home. This is because the gap between living on the street and having a house is too great and the homeless does not feel at home in their new house. That is why this project focused on making intermediaries between a life on the street and in living in a fixed, physical space.

The pyramid of Maslow indicates a person must first have his or her basic needs met before further development is possible. Physiological and safety needs have to be met before being able to provide a sense of social belonging and feeling at home. By providing a middle step between life on the streets and a ‘home’, within the neighbourhoods of the homeless, the idea was to facilitate a sense of home.

This is essential to later being able to live independently.

mentor: committee: committee:

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x 1000 35

self-fulfillment needs achieving one's full potential, including creative activities

30

selfactualization

25

20

esteem

psychological needs prestige and feeling accomplishment intimate relationships, friends

15

love/belonging basic human needs

10

food, water, hygiene, rest, warmth, safety

safety 5

physiological 0 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017

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bedroom

diningroom

bathroom

workroom

home with internal rooms

bedroom

diningroom

bathroom

workroom

home with external rooms

mental individual ambition interests

hygiene

nutrition food water eat rhythm

physical care representation clothing

rest warmth safety sleep rhythm

places for homeless as defragmented network

improving network by connecting places

independent network by adding missing functions

DE DAPPERKEUKEN The first intervention was connected to the basic need: nutrition, in this case food and water. During my time on the streets, I discovered that food markets are producing massive waste at the end of each day, including nutritious food.

The backside of the market stands are dirty and and filled with leftover food.

By investigating these waste flows, I came up with the idea for De Dapperkeuken.

De Dapperkeuken is an hub with the same perimeters as a market stand. It acts as a centre for collection and inventory of food and water. At the end of the day, it transforms into a kitchen where meals are being prepared from the leftovers of the market, and shared with homeless.

This experiment took place on the Dappermarkt. We started with a group of friends and family to set up our own market stand on a nonprofit location. From here we separated into three teams. One team was in charge of collecting waste, using a steel carriage to pass behind every market stand. Not only food but also cardboard and crates were collected for making our own furniture. The second team went on a search for homeless in the neighborhood. The mission was to invite them and their friends for a free dinner at De Dapperkeuken. Most of them were found in the Oosterpark. The third team stayed at De Dapperkeuken. They were in charge of the inventory, setting up the kitchen and preparing the food.

In the end we fed 9 homeless that evening, making their bellies happy. It was a win-win situation. Vendors from the market were offered a convenient way to get rid of their waste, homeless enjoyed a nutritious meal, and other people from the neighborhood were happy and enthusiastic.

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DE BEDSTEEG The second intervention was connected to rest and safety as a basic need. In order to provide this, the strategy was to use the leftover spaces between building blocks. There are many alleys in the inner city of Amsterdam, some even just one meter wide but even this is wide enough to provide space for shelter. The current roles of these alleys differ, some are used as storage or as passage to an inner court, but most of them are unused and locked off. I found many unused alleys in de Jordaan and I wanted to see if I could convince the owners to let me do the intervention there. Finally I succeeded. The designated alley is located on Tuinstraat 33-35, and is called de Zwaardvegersgang. Back in the days this alley was used to connect to the inner court, but that court is now accessed from another entrance. Today this alley has no purpose at all. Only the owner has the key, and the alley is always locked.

My concept was to keep the quality of the alley as an alley, allowing it to remain as a pass-through. The intervention, or the Bedsteeg, is a temporary bedroom that is raised from the ground, reachable by ladder or staircase. The width of the alley determines the way of accessing the space. I measured the alley at several heights to define the actual width of the bedroom. The alley is 1 meter wide so to create a 1 cm space for water drainage between the alley walls and the intervention, the total width of the Bedsteeg became 98cm.

I explored cardboard as a building material, because it is a waste material but with high end qualities in terms of strength and insulation. The material is already used by homeless to keep warm on the streets. I collected cardboard from dumpsites, the streets and construction companies and started producing elements for the Bedsteeg. Every element was prefabricated. Cut, glued and pressed in the right direction. Finally it was treated with a varnish to make it waterproof.

Every element of the Bedsteeg was made out of waste cardboard, from the main beams to the roof tiles and even the window.

Because the alley is quite narrow, I decided to use the height as a spatial element. The inner height makes the space feel less confined and more pleasant.

The roof is angled for water drainage, whilst also protecting from rainwater leakage. A window made of cardboard work as a privacy filter, made out of small strokes of corrugated cardboard. I wanted to make sure this homeless shelter was not exposed to the outside world. Rather, I wanted to provide the feeling of safety and protection. The anonymity of the alley and the shelter is a quality.

The agreement with the owner of the alley and the neighbours was that the intervention would be up for one week. During the first night I slept there, to ensure everything was safe and nothing was forgotten. Satisfied with the result, I then invited three homeless people to sleep there for one night each. These individuals had different backgrounds and reasons for being homeless. All three were grateful about not having to sleep in the rain and cold on the street that night.

The neighbors were surprised how little nuisance there was, it all went very smoothly. The cardboard elements are still strong and there is only smaller damage. Using waste cardboard as a building material proved beneficial both because of it being free and a rather easy material to work with, but also because, when treated properly, it offers very durable qualities and protection against the elements.

I applied what I learned from building with cardboard on the other basic needs I think can be solved through other interventions. De Dapperkeuken, de Vondeldouche and de Boekenbank are examples of interventions designed and constructed with cardboard elements, and that fill the missing links in the network of the homeless.

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The first night, I slept in de bedsteeg to make sure it was safe and ready to go. In the week that the experiment took place, three different homeless slept in it. I personnaly approached them, searching the neighborhood. It was a succes and the demand of shelter is high.

Ergül Ergül (Turkish) is a roofer by profession so he understood the construction of the Bedsteeg very well. I met him at the shelter Stoelenproject, where he was hoping to sleep for the night but as they didn’t have any spaces left I invited him to sleep in the Bedsteeg. He was very happy and felt that it was even better than the Stoelenproject because “it was so quiet and nobody was stinking next to you”. Ergül is on the waiting list for a private studio.

Massimo Massimo (Italian) was pleasantly surprised when I picked him up at the day care center Blaka Watra. After enjoying a nice and warm night in the Bedsteeg he wanted to make a reservation for sleeping there once again. He saw that this concept could work on a larger scale. For him, the good night’s rest together with the privacy and sense of belonging that the Bedsteeg provided is unique.

René René (Dutch) explained that it was his own choice to become homeless, because it was a lifestyle that appealed to him. Even though he was satisfied with not sleeping an evening on the street, he had different expectations of the Bedsteeg. He found the gesture to help homeless people too primitive. “Let’s invite homeless people into our own homes and give them a warm roof with a meal, that’s a gesture” - René

FILM LIKE YOU GIVE A DAMN architect searches film-maker collaboration of two academies d a i l y

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building four 1:1 interventions w i t h i n t h e c e n t e r o f a m s t e r d am to sleep - to eat - to wash - to learn one documentary that tells the story I need your skills and creativity interested? contact me and let’s meet up! let’s film! the academies support us! patrick roegiers - academie van bouwkunst - phr.roegiers@gmail.com - 0626929258