De Realiteit
Building on De Fantasie 25, the De Fantasie Committee organised a second competition in 1985. Now the theme was simply 'Temporary Wo...
Building on De Fantasie 25, the De Fantasie Committee organised a second competition in 1985. Now the theme was simply 'Temporary Living'. The 182 entries were judged mainly on durability and originality. The seventeen winners were again each given 400 m² of building land at a site near de Noorderplassen, but, as at De Fantasie, could not go to banks to finance the construction because no solid collateral would be provided. The award-winning designs were all realised with their own hands and their own funds, supplemented by sponsorship of building materials by suppliers. Twenty-five years on, the properties show some overdue maintenance. Permanent housing is strictly allowed here only if the land under the houses has also been purchased; a recipe for squalor. The whole thing is an example of the enormous creativity that can be unleashed if the right stimulus is given. The variety of solutions gathered here forms a story of the state of building technology and material development and sustainability thinking in the 1980s. De Realiteit forms a manifesto of the unprecedented design ingenuity that was tapped with this competition.
