How do you live? (hosted at: https://how-do-you-live.rietveld-sandberg.nl/) is a year-long inquiry (academic year 2019-2020) into the increasing difficulties of finding affordable living with a focus on the student community of the Rietveld Academie and Sandberg Instituut – which both fall under the umbrella name of Gerrit Rietveld Academie, located in Amsterdam. This webpage functions as an index of the references and documents that have been collected as well as produced within the framework of this inquiry.
As the possibility of finding affordable housing becomes narrower year after year, the ones with fewer resources are slowly excluded from city living. This applies to current students as well as post-graduates intending to stay in the city once their studies finish in order to work on their creative practice.
The following inquiry addressed the entire student body of the Gerrit Rietveld Academie (bachelor and master) to get a better understanding of living conditions, both at this moment in time, as well as in the near past. Students were asked to fill a survey, with the goal of stimulating a larger-scale discussion about how students who are connected to Rietveld and Sandberg manage their housing needs. The reports available on this webpage, as well as their interpretation and advice towards the institution, are the outcome of this survey.
Methodology: The method of administering the survey has been through in-person meetings. More information can be found in the related .pdf documents available on this website. Survey sample rate: 28.15% (244 students out of 867, on both bachelor and master levels). 26.92% (GRA), 34% (SI).
Data policy: We acknowledge that the data collected has been made so with the tacit agreement of the participants, and that possible use cases of the information collected has been made clear before any information has been collected. The information collected has been anonymized during the initial stage of filling the survey and it has been ensured that no specific trackable information has been made available.
This research project was initiated by Alina Lupu and François Girard-Meunier. Alina Lupu is a post-conceptual artist based in Amsterdam, NL, and graduated from the Fine Arts department of the Gerrit Rietveld Academie (2016). François Girard-Meunier works in the cultural sphere as a designer, publisher and autonomous researcher and is based in Amsterdam, NL. François graduated from the Graphic Design department of the Gerrit Rietveld Academie (2015) and the Critical Studies department of the Sandberg Instituut (2018).
This project, part of a themed research on Housing and the Creative City, is supported by the Sandberg Instituut.
Further thanks to the department coordinators of the Gerrit Rietveld Academie and the Sandberg Instituut for facilitating this inquiry, to the teachers for allowing us in their classes, to the people from PUB Sandberg, the Student Council of the Gerrit Rietveld Academie, the Student Office / Student Counsellor (Mirjam Mazurel) for their feedback, advice and support, to the Rietveld Silkscreen workshop for technical assistance, as well as the Sandberg Instituut for financial and material support.