28 February 2018 – It doesn’t happen every day that Dutch social housing, a refurbishment project even, makes it to the Wall Street Journal. The critic Julie Iovine writes about the Splayed Apartment blocks renovation in Rotterdam Ommoord:

On the outskirts of Rotterdam, four Bauhaus-brutal concrete slabs were transformed when the architects added human-scaled brick bases. Dedicated to older occupants, these Knikkers were also renovated to include a ground-floor residents’ community centre. What stands out is an attention to details applied for maximum impact -as simple as a brick pattern or an additional door- making for housing that looks appealingly liveable, not merely utilitarian.

Julie Iovine, Architects Try to Turn Housing Projects into Homes, Wall Street Journal, 26 February 2018, review exhibition Social Housing – New European Projects in New York