Abstract
What does it mean to build with foresight for the future? Which architectural qualities enable long-term adequacy? This essay explores how housing architecture can sustain forms of attachment and endurance in the face of long-term temporal and social uncertainty. It argues that indeterminacy in architectural form (spaces left open, incomplete, or without prescribed function), overall, has normative value: it enables modes of inhabitation grounded in openness, reciprocity, and time-bound continuity. It focuses, in particular, on the material and spatial ways in which small portions of built space, when left programmatically indeterminate, or programmatically incomplete, for users to make their own, consitute one adequate architectural answer to uncertain housing occupations, with culturally – and temporally – varied needs. Indeterminacy itself tranforms into a condition of socio-cultural and political resilience, as it works toward both transmission and generational sovereignty. The discussion draws on different case studies in Europe to ground its claims.
Details
Presentation Type
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session
Theme
2026 Special Focus—From the Home to the City: Designing Spatial Experiences
KEYWORDS
Architectural indeterminacy, Future-ready design, Resilience, Housing, Open program, Temporal stability
