#18 Housing knowledge/s

The eighteenth issue of the future.lab magazine places the global housing crisis at its center and asks what kinds of international and local forms of collaboration and knowledge are needed in architecture, planning, and the social sciences to develop new approaches to action.

With the launch of the Research Center for New Social Housing in autumn 2022, a new transdisciplinary platform was established at the future.lab of TU Wien in collaboration with the research areas of Sociology and Housing as well as Design at the faculty, and with the University of Vienna. The Center, whose name derives from the long-standing collaboration with IBA_Wien, promotes transdisciplinary, critical, and comparative research in the fields of social housing and urban development.

This issue of the future.lab magazine opens a debate on housing knowledge by linking local examples (including the Viennese housing model, housing cooperatives in Switzerland and Uruguay, and the homelessness crisis in Los Angeles) with the international discourse in housing research on financialization, affordability, displacement, and distributive justice. We ask: What knowledge about housing production, housing policies, and dwelling needs to be considered in research and design, and how can we create an exchange between these specific forms of knowledge?

We hope you enjoy reading the first English-language edition of the future.lab magazine and would like to warmly thank the authors of this issue.

future.lab editorial team:
Judith M. Lehner (Research Center for New Social Housing)