https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1560-6366
![Sample our Health and Social Care journals, sign in here to start your FREE access for 14 days]({"type":"image" , "src" : "/sda/5938/TOC-Subject-Sample-2021-Health-Social-Care.jpg"})
Abstract
Architectural anthropology offers a way to critically analyse spaces through the social life that happens around them. It is a qualitative approach that relies on ethnography to connect larger systems and subjective dimensions, self-reflexivity, and the use of visualisations as a key analytical tool. This paper reflects on the possible contribution of architectural anthropology to housing studies. More specifically, it looks at homing processes in social housing, interrogating how non-domestic spaces perform through tenants’ inhabitation practices. It tests ways to visualise ethnographic data gathered during immersive fieldwork that involved participant observation and informal interactions in a high-rise estate in Brussels. Three types of visualisations (subjective map, annotated photograph, lived-in axonometry) are presented to articulate the paper’s discussion of homing, un-homing and de-homing processes at the level of a district, urban interstices, and beyond social housing. Ultimately, the paper concludes that architectural anthropology may contribute further to housing studies by exploring the relationship between home(making) and urban contexts.
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank Le Foyer Laekenois, the PCS Quartier Nord and all the tenants encountered during their fieldwork in the Héliport estate. This article is a sharpened and extended version of a preliminary essay presented during the 7th World Urbanism Seminar organised by the KU Leuven in June 2020: Homing Social Housing: Still Life and Tableau Vivant of Avenue de l’Héliport, Brussels North Quarter. Part of the article content was also presented and discussed during the AHRA International conference organised by Nottingham University in November 2020: Homing and trust in a chronicle of crises: ethnographic insights from Brussels social housing and the RC21 conference organized by the University of Antwerp in July 2021: Homing social housing: the case of Héliport in Brussels North Quarter. The authors would like to thank the organizers of these events as well as the reviewers for their comments, including the insightful and constructive feedback of the anonymous readers. Finally, they would like to thank Layla Zibar for her precious advice and Khalda El Jack for generously accepting to proofread this article. This publication was made possible through funding support of the KU Leuven.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 The ‘lived-in axonometry’ is a term derived from the ‘tableau vivant’ (a static scene picturing several actions), using the three-dimensional medium of an axonometric drawing
2 serve the purpose of situating the case-study and are not part of the argument about fieldwork visualisation.
3 The building permit introduced in 1969 foresees eight housing buildings.
4 See the demolition of the Papenvest estate (1964) foreseen between 2022 and 2023
5 The large-module ‘tunnel formwork’ system. (Ville de Bruxelles - Cellule Patrimoine historique, 1998)
6 SLRB (2020) Statistics of the SISP. Numbers for the entire property of the FLH in: https://slrb-bghm.brussels/fr/societe-du-logement-de-la-region-de-bruxelles-capitale/nos-rapports consulted on November 15th, 2021.
7 Ibid. (tenants above 60 years old)
8 Ibid.
9 This statement is backed-up by statistics available in: Monitoring des Quartiers (2019) http://monitoringdesquartiers.brussels/maps/statistiques-population-bruxelles/nationalites-region-bruxelloise/part-des-autres-nationalites/1/2019/ consulted on April 30th, 2021.
10 Social housing rent corresponds to a quarter of the household’s revenues
11 The broader label of ‘housing with social objective’ (à finalité sociale) which includes social housing along other (non-rental) public housing options represents 11,5% of Brussels housing market in January 2019 (Van de Casteele, Citation2020)
12 In 2020, the social housing waiting list counted 49.135 households, or 10,5% of Brussels’ population (Ben Hamou, Citation2020)
13 In: https://slrb-bghm.brussels/fr/devenir-locataire/suivi-de-votre-candidature#:∼:text = Les%20titres%20de%20priorit%C3%A9s%20d%C3%A9terminent,points%20de%20titre%20de%20priorit%C3%A9. Consulted on April 13th, 2022.
14 Average wait in 2019. In: https://logementbruxellois.be/candidat/attribution/ consulted on April 30th, 2021.
15 SLRB (2020) Statistics of the SISP, consulted on November 15th, 2021.
16 Rental vacancy rate concerns 4% of the FLH properties located in 1000 Brussels in 2019. In: SLRB (2019) Statistics of the SISP in: https://slrb-bghm.brussels/fr/societe-du-logement-de-la-region-de-bruxelles-capitale/nos-rapports consulted on March 24th, 2021.
17 Tenants’ names are anonymised to preserve intimacy.
18 In the text, we refer to the binary categories of ‘man/male’ and ‘woman/female’ because male- and female-presenting social housing tenants and additional interlocutors self-identified with them.
19 This testimony was reported by a social worker working in a Social Cohesion Project (PCS) associated to a high-rise social housing estate in Brussels (June 2021)
20 Translated by the author*: ‘ne pas oser bouger d’un bloc à l’autre, d’un sous-quartier à l’autre, du quartier… Leurs représentations de la ville sont rivées à celles du quartier.’
21 Security is a frequent object of residents’ complaints and a topic that is systematically addressed during official meetings with public authorities and social housing managers.
22 All tenants’ quotes were translated from French to English by the author*.
23 M* talked about his misfortune, reporting that when he was about to realise his dream a few years ago, all his savings were stolen.
24 F* and her husband own a small truck to buy and sell goods on weekends flea markets
25 Some tenants refuse to attend public meetings in the community house which last after sunset because of ‘the lack of safety’
26 ASBL Cité Modèle (FLH); PCS Quartier Nord (social cohesion program jointly supported by the municipality and the FLH); community house Millénaire; youth centre l’Avenir (closed between 2017 and 2020).
27 Heating breakdowns were reported by tenants during fieldwork, 2019.
28 With fixed-term lease (9 year) and a yearly re-evaluation of the rent in case of income fluctuation.
29 As presented by an employee of the FLH during fieldwork: ‘a temporary solution, to use in case of need’.
30 SLRB (2019) Statistics of the SISP in: https://slrb-bghm.brussels/fr/societe-du-logement-de-la-region-de-bruxelles-capitale/nos-rapports consulted on March 24th, 2021.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Claire Bosmans
Claire Bosmans is a PhD Candidate at the Department of Architecture, KU Leuven. She holds a Master’s in Architecture from the Brussels based LOCI Faculty of UCLouvain and a post-Master’s in Urbanism and Strategic Planning from KU Leuven. Her research focuses on Modernist social housing estates in Brussels and their residents, combining architecture, urbanism and ethnography through drawing and design experiments.
Jingjing Li
Jingjing Li is a Ph.D. candidate of Social and Cultural Anthropology, Department of Social Sciences, KU Leuven. Her research focuses on repurposing vacant and abandoned urban spaces via art and social initiatives in Brussels.
Ching Lin Pang
Ching Lin Pang is Associate Professor at the Department of Applied Linguistics, Translation and Interpreting, University of Antwerp and IMMRC/LINES, KU Leuven. As an interdisciplinary anthropologist she is keen on exploring new ways of transdisciplinary collaboration, methodological cosmopolitanism and hypermediazation.
Viviana d’Auria
Viviana d’Auria is Associate Professor of International Urbanism at the Department of Architecture, KU Leuven. Exploring ‘practised’ and ‘lived-in’ architecture is an integral part of her research within a more general interest in the trans-cultural construction of cities and their contested spaces.