AEREA
Drawings on paperA 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.
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︎︎︎ Newsletter
● published drawing.
1/20 ●
2/20 ●
Unité d’Habitación ●
3/20 ●
Corviale
4/20 ●
5/20 ●
Barbican
London, UK2/20 ●
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
12/20
13/20
14/20
15/20
Karl Marx-Hof
Vienna, Austria12/20
Regent International Center
Hangzhou, China13/20
Habitat 67
Montréal, Canada14/20
Ekbatan Town
Tehran, Iran15/20
Tama New Town
Tama Hills, Japan16/20
17/20
18/20
19/20
20/20
Tin Shui Wai
Hong Kong, China17/20
Walden 7
Sant Just Desvern, Spain18/20
Conjunto Nacional
São Paulo, Brazil19/20
Co-op City
New York, USAThe Pinnacle@Duxton
SingaporeMany 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
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
︎︎︎ Inquire
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
︎︎︎ Inquire
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
︎︎︎ Inquire
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
︎︎︎ Inquire
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
︎︎︎ Inquire
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
︎︎︎ Inquire
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
︎︎︎ Inquire
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
︎︎︎ Inquire
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
︎︎︎ Inquire
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
︎︎︎ Inquire
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
︎︎︎ Inquire
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
︎︎︎ Inquire
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
︎︎︎ Inquire
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
︎︎︎ Inquire
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
︎︎︎ Inquire
Built in Singapore
2005-2009
36 x 36cm – 14 x 14in
Ink on 200g/m2 paper
︎︎︎ Inquire
