On our website and social media, MVRDV is dedicating this October to the topic of housing. Housing is now an issue in the minds and on the tongues of people all over the world. Housing crises around the world have turned what was once the domain of construction industry experts into a topic of conversation for people from all walks of life. The most obvious – and effective – way to address these crises is to build new housing, with scale and with speed. But while doing so, keeping the quality of such housing high remains critical. At MVRDV, we believe everyone deserves to live somewhere that is exciting yet cosy, social yet intimate, aspirational yet homely.

MVRDV was founded on the back of a housing project, Berlin Voids, and the design of housing runs deep in our DNA. After Berlin Voids came projects such as WoZoCo, Silodam, Mirador, and Celosia, that offered new ways of living together in high-density apartment blocks. Later projects show ideas pushed to extremes, from the colossal scale of Future Towers, to intricate forms based on daylight such as Ilot Queyries, to dramatic, precedent-setting visions such as Valley. In housing masterplans such as Ypenburg and Nieuw Leyden, we explored different approaches to organising residential neighbourhoods, and further expanded our thinking in current masterplans such as Hyde Park and Bastide Niel. Throughout everything, research guides our agenda, from the Freeland proposal that is currently being built as Almere Oosterwold, to the Vertical Village that informs our ideals in countless other works.

With #Housing Month, MVRDV hopes to bring further focus to this urgent issue, showcasing our designs, research, and ideals in as much detail as possible. From mass housing projects of over 1,000 individual homes to bespoke houses, from social housing to high-end apartments, and from simple pragmatic solutions to complex research projects, this month we aim to delve deep into MVRDV’s history (and future) of thinking about this topic.

You can take part by following MVRDV on Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter, or by following and using the hashtags #Housing and #MVRDVhousing.