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AEREA

Drawings on paper

A series of 20 hand drawings that reimagines some of the most significant public housing projects around the world.


Both an archive and a critique.
Imagining these buildings as satellites, no longer belonging to the ground we inhabit, but to a distant orbit of ideas.
Still visible, still influential yet no longer fully accessible.


Each drawing begins with a real reference, but what emerges is akin to a (biased) translation. Extracted from their geographical, political, and social contexts, these buildings are suspended in blank space. Detached, weightless and isolated.


Work in progress, so sign up
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Each week one more!

︎︎︎ Newsletter

published drawing.





1/20 

Barbican 

London, UK

2/20 

Unité d’Habitación 
Marseille, France


3/20 

Corviale
Rome, Italy


4/20 
Bijlmermeer
Amsterdam, Netherlands


5/20 
Golden Mile Complex
Singapore


6/20
Siedlung Halen
Bern, Switzerland


7/20
Trellick Tower
London, UK


8/20
Novi Beograd
Belgrade, Serbia


9/20
Pegli 3
Genoa, Italy


10/20
Robin Hood Gardens
London, UK

11/20

Karl Marx-Hof

Vienna, Austria

12/20

Regent International Center

Hangzhou, China

13/20   

Habitat 67

Montréal, Canada

14/20

Ekbatan Town

Tehran, Iran

15/20

Tama New Town

Tama Hills, Japan
16/20

Tin Shui Wai

Hong Kong, China

17/20

Walden 7

Sant Just Desvern, Spain

18/20

Conjunto Nacional

São Paulo, Brazil

19/20

Co-op City

New York, USA


20/20

The Pinnacle@Duxton

Singapore






Many of these projects were conceived as radical answers to urgent housing crises, embedding social ambition into concrete, repetition, and scale. Over time, some became icons, others warnings, and many continue to evolve through use, adaptation and/or neglect.

AEREA does not attempt to resolve these views but instead holds them in suspension, allowing their forms to speak independently from their outcomes. This displacement reflects a contemporary condition in which the replication of such ambitious public housing seems increasingly economically, politically and socially improbable.







1/20

Barbican


Design by Chamberlin, Powell and Bon
Built in London, UK
1960-70


An iconic Brutalist residential and cultural complex.
It operates as a utopian "city within a city", housing around 4,000 residents across towering blocks and low-rise terraces.


References:
This photoshoot from Davis Altrah was very helpful (and beautifully done). Plus “The Barbican Estate” book by Stefi Orazi is just great!

Original drawing
36 x 36 cm – 14 x 14 in
Ink on 200g/m2 paper


Published - 10/06/2026


 


2/20

Unité d'Habitation


 

Design by Le Corbusier
Built in Marseille, France
1952


It stands as one of Le Corbusier’s most influential postwar visions of collective living. Raised on pilotis and organized as a vertical neighbourhood, it combines apartments, internal streets and shared amenities into a single monumental structure with staircases and chimneys as sculptural elements.



Original drawing
36 x 36 cm – 14 x 14 in
Ink on 200g/m2 paper


Published - 18/06/2026

(Sold)



3/20

Corviale

 


Design by Mario Fiorentino
Built in Rome, Italy
1982


One of Italy’s most radical experiments in postwar social housing. Stretching nearly a kilometre along the Roman periphery, Corviale was conceived as a self-contained linear city, where apartments, services, and communal spaces unfold within a single continuous structure, its stark concrete mass punctuated by voids and corridors that speak to both utopian ambition and urban isolation.


36 x 36 cm – 14 x 14 in
Ink on 200g/m2 paper


Published - 26/06/2026





4/20

Bijlmermeer




Design by Siegfried Nassuth
Built in Amsterdam, Netherlands
1968-1975


Conceived as one of the Netherlands’ most ambitious postwar urban expansions, Bijlmermeer in Amsterdam reimagined modernist housing at a metropolitan scale. Organized through a strict grid of elevated hexagonal blocks, the district was designed as a rational, egalitarian environment where high-rise living coexisted with vast green spaces and separated traffic systems. Its repetitive concrete slabs and elevated walkways embodied a vision of functional utopia, yet over time revealed the social and spatial challenges of abstraction, anonymity, and urban fragmentation.



36 x 36 cm – 14 x 14 in
Ink on 200g/m2 paper

Published - 2/07/2026






5/20

Golden Mile Complex


 
Design by DP Architects
Built in Singapore
1970s–1990s


Golden Mile Complex stands as one of Singapore’s earliest and most ambitious experiments in vertical urban living.

Rising as a 16-storey Brutalist landmark, it brought together housing, commerce, and recreation in a single integrated structure, reflecting the optimism of the nation-building years. Its terraced silhouette and stacked circulation were shaped to respond to the tropical environment, introducing shade, airflow, and layered communal space into the dense city.

Over the decades, the building evolved into a vibrant social enclave, especially for Thai businesses and communities, while also becoming a case study in the tension between heritage, aging infrastructure, and redevelopment.

36 x 36 cm – 14 x 14 in
Ink on 200g/m2 paper

Published - 2/07/2026

6/20

Siedlung Halen


16.07.2026


Design by Atelier 5
Built in Bern, Switzerland
1957–1961

36 x 36 cm – 14 x 14 in
Ink on 200g/m2 paper

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7/20

Trelick Tower


23.07.2026


Design by Ernő Goldfinger
Built in London, UK
1972


36 x 36cm – 14 x 14in
Ink on 200g/m2 paper


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8/20

Novi Beograd




6.08.2026


Design by many
Built in Belgrade, Serbia
1960s–1980s


36 x 36cm – 14 x 14in
Ink on 200g/m2 paper


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9/20

Pegli 3


13.08.2026


Design by Aldo Luigi Rizzo, Aldo Pino, Andrea Moro & Angelo Sibilla
Built in Genoa, Italy
1989


36 x 36cm – 14 x 14in
Ink on 200g/m2 paper


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10/20

Robin Hood Gardens


20.08.2026


Design by Alison & Peter Smithson
Built in London, UK
1972


36 x 36cm – 14 x 14in
Ink on 200g/m2 paper


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11/20

Karl Marx-Hof


27.08.2026


Design by Karl Ehn
Built in Vienna, Austria
1927-1930


36 x 36cm – 14 x 14in
Ink on 200g/m2 paper


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12/20

Regent International Center


3.09.2026


Design by Alicia Loo
Built in Hangzhou, China
2013


36 x 36cm – 14 x 14in
Ink on 200g/m2 paper


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13/20

Habitat 67


10.09.2026


Design by Moshe Safdie
Built in Montréal, Canada
1967


36 x 36cm – 14 x 14in
Ink on 200g/m2 paper


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14/20

Ekbatan Town


17.09.2026


Design by Rahman Golzar & Gruzen Partners
Built in Tehran, Iran
1970s–1980s


36 x 36cm – 14 x 14in
Ink on 200g/m2 paper


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15/20

Tama Town


24.09.2026


Design by many
Built in Hong Kong, China
1980s–2000s


36 x 36cm – 14 x 14in
Ink on 200g/m2 paper


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16/20

Tin Shui Wai


1.10.2026


Design by many
Built in Hong Kong, China
1980s–2000s · Various


36 x 36cm – 14 x 14in
Ink on 200g/m2 paper


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17/20

Walden 7


8.10.2026


Design by Ricardo Bofill Taller de Arquitectura
Built in Sant Just Desvern, Spain
1975


36 x 36cm – 14 x 14in
Ink on 200g/m2 paper


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18/20

Conjunto Nacional


15.10.2026


Design by David Libeskind
Built in São Paulo, Brazil
1956


36 x 36cm – 14 x 14in
Ink on 200g/m2 paper


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19/20

Co-op City


29.10.2026


Design by Herman Jessor
Built in the Bronx, New York, USA
1968–1973


36 x 36cm – 14 x 14in
Ink on 200g/m2 paper


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20/20

The Pinnacle@Duxton


5.11.2026

Design by Louis Tan, Khoo Peng Beng, Belinda Huang, Sandy Ng, Lim Khim Guan and ARC Studio Architecture + Urbanism

Built in Singapore
2005-2009


36 x 36cm – 14 x 14in
Ink on 200g/m2 paper


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