Palazzo Typology and Design Method: The Residential Palazzo - Het woonpalazzo: In Design Research, Education and Practice by Hans van der Heijden

Hans van der Heijden’s The Residential Palazzo traces a decade-long investigation, begun during his 2014 professorship at Cambridge University, into the palazzo as a typology for contemporary high-density housing. The book is organised into three parts. The first part consists of an introductory essay, which discusses the idea of typology and the palazzo as an urban type. It situates some of the key motivations behind van der Heijden’s study and how this was carried out in his writing, building, and teaching projects. The second part is a projects section, which traces a concise genealogy of the palazzo through a suite of drawings and photographs, beginning with Giuliano da Sangallo’s Palazzo Gondi (1489) in Florence, the transposition of the palazzo typology into the Dutch context at Dirk van Oort’s Lutherhof (1909) in Amsterdam, then a series of built and unbuilt projects by van der Heijden, before ending with a suite of his student’s projects that test the palazzo type in an educational context. The third part of the book is a postscript by Fred Humblé, which reflects on a design studio led by van der Heijden at Antwerp called “The Palazzo as a Model for Housing.”

Bibliographical information
The Residential Palazzo - Het woonpalazzo: In Design Research, Education and Practice
Hans van der Heijden. With postscript by Fred Humblé
Amsterdam: HvdHA, 2025
Text in Dutch and English
192 pages, numerous drawings and photographs
ISBN 978-90-828082-2-3
EUR 35.00