Siza’s initial exchanges with the stakeholders involved in the urban renewal of the Schilderswijk were contentious. He visited the houses of local residents, and met with several technicians, social workers, and representatives of the local housing corporation. Despite some initial resistance to his ideas and an intense negotiation, Siza managed to show to all the stakeholders his genuine interest in the upgrading of the district’s living conditions. Eventually the plan for the deelgebied 5 was approved. However, the participatory process during the development of the plan did not engage most of the residents. This would change radically when the discussions moved to the scale of the building, and especially to the discussions on the dwellings’ floor plan layout. Duivesteijn and the municipality of The Hague were aware of the importance of the spatial organisation of the dwelling unit for a successful urban renewal operation. Considering the difficulties experienced by laymen in understanding technical drawings, many urban renewal operations in the Netherlands during the 1980s adopted an efficient instrument to promote meaningful communication between technicians and the dwellers in housing design: The Spatial Development Laboratory (Ruimtelijk Ontwikkelings Laboratorium, ROL).
A Laboratory for Meaningful Communication in Design Decision-Making
The history of the use of the ROL in design decision-making processes is inextricably linked with the paradigm shift in urban renewal programmes in the Netherlands. Following the shortcomings of the welfare state architecture in the late 1960s, the Dutch governmental and municipal authorities decided to involve the population in the debate on housing. Inspired by this new approach to housing policies, in the early 1970s a group of architects decided to plan an exhibition of the new housing estates to be built in Amsterdam, showing 1:1 models of the “houses of the future”11. This exhibition was meant to become the background against which a permanent debate on housing would ensue. Though the exhibition was never implemented, Amsterdam’s municipal office for housing took advantage of the idea of creating a system to build quickly and inexpensively full-scale models of the apartments designed for their new social housing estates.
The system was based on plywood modular components with chipboard frame. The modular system used components varying in series of 10 cm from the 10 x 10x 10 cm basic unit to the 60 x 40 x 20 cm main unit. The system was assembled with plastic pipes inserted in the holes opened on the top and bottom of the wooden modules. The models built with this system could integrate window frames and doors, as well as furniture and household appliances to create a more realistic experience of the tested dwelling unit, and an objective feedback from the future dwellers on its characteristics. The ROL became a success among the institutional stakeholders interested in social housing.
Soon most of the major cities in The Netherlands would have their own ROL and use it to involve the residents in the design decision-making process (Dinesen, 1982, p. 306). As the Danish scholar Cort Ross Dinesen put it, the models built in the ROLs served two purposes: as a simulation of the dwelling and as a method of communication with users” (Dinesen, 1982, p. 307). Using this system, the architect’s design becomes more tangible and thus enhances residents’ feedback grounded on a concrete spatial experience, with an open attitude where everybody can express their outlook and opinion on the layout of the dwellings, and contribute to fine-tune the project.
Following the lead of Amsterdam, the department of urban renewal at The Hague’s municipality also created a ROL which eventually was used to discuss and develop the layout of the dwellings for the two housing blocks that Siza was commissioned to design in the deelgebied 5, which eventually became known as Punt en Komma.
Accommodating Differences
On 24 January 1985, Álvaro Siza and several technicians involved in the Punt en Komma project travelled to the ROL to meet with the group Bouwen in 5, an association of residents in Schilderwijk’s deelgebied 5. The goal of the working day at the ROL was to assess the qualities and problems of a floor plan for a housing complex located in the Rembrandtstraat, elsewhere in the Schilderswijk district, developed earlier by the housing corporation’s-Gravenhage, the client of Punt en Komma.
In the introduction to the meeting, Siza highlighted the need to understand the way people live as the basis for a research aimed at improving it. Considering the demographics of the neighbourhood, Siza duly noted the absence of foreign residents in the meeting, and stressed the importance of receiving contributions from all the different groups of residents in the deelgebied 5. “The aim is to develop a plan that can be suitable for both Dutch and foreign residents,” Siza claimed12. Many critiques and suggestions were made after experiencing the full-scale mock-up of the dwelling unit. The accessibility to the kitchen, the rigidity of the partitions, the mix of sleeping and living areas, and the area and structure of the distribution areas were the most noticed remarks.
After this working session at the ROL, the participants made a summary of requirements, to be taken into account by Siza in the development of the project. Then, using his own critical assessment of the residents’ review on the unit tested at the ROL workshop, Siza developed a layout proposal for the Punt en Komma dwellings. There were conspicuous changes to the initial layout tested at the ROL, first and foremost the introduction of a clear distribution area and a better differentiation between the public areas (kitchen and living room) and the private areas (bedrooms and toilet). The layout developed by Siza placed on the street side a larger living room with a semi-open kitchen next to it, while the bedrooms were placed facing the courtyard of the building. These two main areas were articulated by a system of double distribution in U shape, divided by a closet, and connecting all partitions.
Following up on these initial contacts, in March 1985, the group Bouwen in 5 issued a list of principles they believed essential for a smooth relation between the different stakeholders13. Among these principles, the issue of the communication between the architect and the residents was also addressed. They suggested “the architects should, as far as possible, use spatial methods of representation: isometrics, perspective drawings, models, photomontages and so on”14. In effect, on 22 April 1985, the same group, together with other associations of deelgebied 5 residents, distributed a document with the title Bewonersparticipatie: Nu en in de toekomst (Residents’ participation: Now and in the future), where they presented several requirements for an effective and fruitful participation of the residents in the design decision-making process. Among these requirements, the ROL workshops were considered an important component of a design process aimed at “building a home and not just a house”15.
Hence, over the following months several working days were organized at the ROL to discuss the floor plan of the dwellings. On 11 July 1985, a working day with eleven Turkish residents was held in the ROL housed in the Faculty of Architecture at Delft University of Technology16. In the meeting’s introduction delivered by Jacques Poot, the residents’ expert, he emphasized the importance of having the foreign residents involved in the process, as they represent approximately half of the population living in the deelgebied 5. However, as Siza had remarked some months earlier, Poot also contended that it “must be kept in mind that the houses should be suitable for all populations, and not specifically for foreign residents”17. The report of the assessment made by the Turkish residents underlines their good acceptance of the dwelling layout, especially the flexibility of the plan, and the clear separation between living and sleeping areas, as well as their position in the building: the living room on the street side