Keilewijk; Growing up in an Inclusive City: Gaining distance from the front door, step by step

Keilewijk is a collective housing design for one-parent families in the M4H region in Rotterdam. The M4H is an area where, in the past, heavy dock work was carried out. Space has now been made to expand residential Rotterdam with high-density housing and facilities and to transform the area into a working-living environment. Children and their families’ presence in this future city is essential for the vitality of it, and quality of life in it. At the same time, a family home does not consist out of one type. In recent decades the composition of the standard family (the family of a father, a mother, and an average of two children) is fragmented into a wide variety of family compositions. The one-parent family, a family in which one parent raises one or more children without a second parent in the picture, is one of them. This type of family has an increasing share in our society. In addition, a large number of these families live in Rotterdam. It would be beneficial to keep it that way. The Keilewijk design offers housing for one-parent families in future Rotterdam. Keilewijk pays attention to a clear division between the domain of the public, the collective, the family and the individual. The design offers suitable homes and collective spaces for one-parent families, which at the same time -based on American sociologist Richard Senett's theories of the Open City- can contribute to the support of inclusiveness in future Rotterdam. Keilewijk represents a design in which a wide variety of suitable homes stacked together form an intimate vertical neighbourhood. A design that offers room for children to, step by step, take distance from their front door and to gradually get to know their city of Rotterdam.
Architecture, Urbanism and Building Sciences | Dwelling