Patterns of Thinking, Sophie Delhay

Abstract: If typology allows classification, it is - for architects - a tool that allows us to operate in the complexity of a project thanks to a repertoire classifying the resolutions by “family” from which we can draw. In a way, typology organizes our field of knowledge and constitutes the cultural base on which he can rely.
In the field of housing design, the typology constitutes a repertoire of principles that primarily govern the combinatorial game, specific to the collective dimension of housing projects. Typology also negotiates the close relationships between housing and the city, because typology establishes - through the criteria it designates as ”primary” - consequences on both sides.
Unfortunately, for some decades, capitalist mechanisms have set in stone the most profitable and optimized typologies and - making them more effective and economical - have limited the freedom of architects to navigate freely in this repertoire. The norms, rules and regulations based on these principles have definitively fossilized these types and produced new fixed standards that limit the exploratory character of typological research.
This leaves little room for architects to play and prevents us from making the qualities of the habitat evolve at the pace of society's changes, but above all from doing our own work as designers by confining us to questions of façade cosmetics, for example. Therefore, how can the architect break from the rules on which these standards are based?