Summary

Many neighborhoods dating from the 1970s, with corporation-owned terraced housing in open urban schemes, saw a round of renovation for the houses in the last decades, but left the supply of family homes intact. This housing stock doesn’t meet the needs of the elderly still living in them anymore, nor fulfills new demands of today like diversification, densification, sustainability, social structure, and environmental concerns. The Kastelenbuurt in Oosterhout, N.B., scene of the architect’s youth, is taken for a pilot study, in which a sequence of technical, architectural, and urban interventions leads to a makeover of the housing stock. The whole process of transformation also meets the goals of densification and a new social structure. The way this design makes use of the possibilities offered by the original concrete tunnel frame of the houses and the use of prefabricated building parts makes it relevant for the development of new housing arrangements in existing neighborhoods