negotiating ungers 3. the self-help housing system and the construction of communities

in 1972, german architect oswald mathias ungers and his students at cornell university in ithaca, ny, developed a prototype for a self-help housing system (s-hhs). shortly before, ungers and his wife liselotte had begun a research project on utopian communities in the united states; the study was published in 1972 under the title “communes in the new world 1740-1972”.

ungers’ approach to architecture around 1972 combines beliefs and strategies of typological research, modern urban planning, and utopianism in an unfamiliar way. the self-help housing system (s-hhs) can be interpreted as a new type of architectural component connecting larger political, social, and economic systems and community-driven initiatives. the research on communes in the u.s. departs from alternative spatial and organizational forms of community and contributes a focus on practices and typologies. taken together, both projects point to the processual character and the broad agencies involved in architectural production.

developed through research started with a summer school at the kunstakademie düsseldorf in 2021 this third publication in the series centers around negotiating between systematic and inventive approaches, and between levels of the social and the communal of both projects through essays, interviews and artistic research.

with an essay by gerardo brown-manrique, texts by lara schrijver, cédric libert, cornelia escher, lars fischer and others, and an interview with christoph heinemann and christoph schmidt and jesko fezer.

designed by geoff han

printed by printon (estonia)

isbn 978-0-9882906-5-5

available at: idea books; or email.

this publication was made possible with support from ku leuven, faculty of architecture, kunstakademie  düsseldorf, and ungers  archiv  für  architekturwissenschaft.

negotiating ungers. the construction of communities, exhibition, 2023