FOCUS ON BUILDING FOR THE COMMUNITY
Photo: Javier Callejas
FULL HILL HOMES AUROVILLE, INDIA
Growing concerns about the lack of affordable housing and increasing homelessness prompted Anupama Kundoo Architects to develop – in collaboration with the National Association of Schools of Architecture and the Marg Institute of Design and Architecture Swarnabhoomi – low cost housing units with a low environmental impact that can be built almost overnight. The clarity and sublime abstraction of the Full Fill Homes, as well as their colour schemes, recall, surprisingly enough, the architecture of the Dutch art movement De Stijl of about a hundred years ago and more specifically the famous Rietveld-Schröder House by Gerrit Rietveld. Built with specially designed modules of prefabricated ferrocement hollow block units, Full Fill Homes can be assembled on site in just six days including the foundations. The houses can be dismantled with equal simplicity in just a day. The ferrocement elements are constructed with chicken wire, welded mesh and small diameter steel reinforcement, significantly reducing the quantities of costly, energy consuming materials. In order to further reduce costs and to support the local economy, the blocks are produced in the backyards of the houses rather than in factories. Windows, doors, roof elements and other building components are also produced in ferrocement, avoiding the use of any complex “hardware”.
The voids inside the blocks, which strengthen the thin ferrocement elements through their folded form, are designed to accommodate efficiently all the residents’ storage needs from clothes to books to kitchen utensils, and the kitchen sink itself, as well as other personal belongings. Furniture becomes essentially redundant. As a result the interior space can remain more or less free from furniture, while saving additional cost and time that otherwise would have to be spent on furnishing.
Their bright colours stimulate the residents to engage with these voids and actually use them. The affordability of the units, besides their abstract but at the same time very practical design, makes them suitable for all kinds of users, and not only for the poor. They can be used as shelters at farms in remote areas, as disaster relief refuges, as youth hostels and student housing, and for guest houses in environmentally sensitive locations. The prototype was produced in Bharatipuram, Auroville, and installed at the 57th Annual National Association of Students of Architecture at MIDAS Chennai, to test the design at full scale.
ARCHITECT: ANUPAMA KUNDOO ARCHITECTS Photos: Sebastiano Giannesini
STUDENT HOUSING SANT CUGAT, BARCELONA, SPAIN
Far-reaching industrialization of the building process, standardized modules and unfinished interiors: with these attributes, the Spanish architecture offices Harchitectes and dataAE were able to design the student housing in Sint Cugat, Barcelona, so that the complex could be realized in practically in a flash. Fabrication of the modules took two months, transportation and assembly on-site took two weeks, and completion of the roof and the façades and infrastructural embedding in the environment of the complex consumed no more than three months. The entire building process was finished in about half a year, thereby meeting the residence needs of the students in good time. The speedy result led moreover to considerable cost savings, all the more relevantly because students are generally cash-strapped and cannot afford luxury rents. Rapid, inexpensive construction made the complex feasible. The student housing consists of two parallel, oblong, two-storey blocks. The architects made clever use of the topography: the upper floor is accessible without stairways because it can be reached from an adjacent hill-slope via a concrete ramp. This simple construction makes it unnecessary to install lifts and halves the area needed for corridors and stairwells. It consequently reduced the cost of building materials while also diminishing the ecological footprint.
Between the two parallel blocks, an enclosed garden is now partly sheltered by a polycarbonate canopy, for climatic among other reasons. This inner area is intended as a social space that also serves as a venue for organized activities. To tempt the students out of their rooms and encourage meetings, raised walkways are provided to bridge the space between the two blocks. Each module is exactly the same, with student bedroom partitions and a kitchenette and bathroom. This eases future flexibility: modules can be added or removed for use elsewhere according to requirements. The floors, walls and ceilings of the rooms were left bare of plaster or other added finishes, leaving the students free to decorate their module interiors according to taste. The outer façade is clad in galvanized steel mesh which supports the growth of climbing plants. Rather than having an industrial look, the complex harmonizes with the natural surroundings. The resulting aura is a humane and friendly one, despite the limited budget of the project.
ARCHITECT: HARQUITECTES & DATAAE
Photos: Adrià Goula
SOCIAL COMPLEX FOR THE ELDERLY ALCABIDECHE, PORTUGAL
People today reach a greater age and live independently for longer. That is not without risks. Elderly people are vulnerable in various respects, and loneliness is a persistent hazard. In their design for a social housing complex for seniors in Alcabideche, not far from Lisbon, the Portuguese architecture firm Guedes Cruz Arquitectos aims to address these problems. The complex creates safe living surroundings and allows the residents to form part of a community, as in a small village. Although Portugal is not strictly a Mediterranean country, successive occupations by the Romans and the Moors of the distant past established the basis of a lifestyle that can justifiably be called Mediterranean. More than in any other part of Europe, private and public lifestyles blend seamlessly into one another, thereby making the elderly a part of the social milieu. Guedes Cruz Arquitectos accordingly provided the complex with streets, squares and gardens, effectively forming an extension of the private spaces of the dwellings. In the sheltered, safe surroundings, in the cool shadows of the houses, elderly residents can meet and develop cordial relationships.
Even in the late evening, there is ample opportunity to go for a walk around the block: the translucent rooftops exude a gentle glow that bathes the outdoor space in a subtle, uniform illumination. In an emergency, residents at home can push a warning button. The roof suddenly radiates red light instead of white. The complex consists of fifty-two homes for elderly couples, a central building for social activities and individual one-room apartments for those who are bedridden and in need of care. Bare concrete and acrylic glass are the prominent materials of the complex, while the overall composition is abstract, harmonious and tranquil. From the viewpoint of sustainability, Guedes Cruz Arquitectos sought a balance between the construction costs and those implicit in the use of the complex. Austerity in the building budget could, after all, lead to higher operating costs. The use of solar panels to generate electricity for floor heating and of groundwater for garden irrigation and street cleaning contribute to lower the costs as a matter of course. A combination of natural ventilation through the roof and the heat-reflecting properties of the white plexiglass help to stabilize the indoor temperature of the dwellings.
ARCHITECT: GUEDES CRUZ ARQUITECTOS Photos: Ricardo Oliveira Alves
JARAHIEH SCHOOL, AL-MARJ, LEBANON
In 2014 two relief organizations – Jusoor and Sawa for Development Aid – established a school within the Jarahieh informal settlement in the Lebanese town of Al-Marj, close to the Syrian border. For two years it housed classrooms for nearly 320 children in total. The school constantly needed repairs, however. Made with wood and tarpaulin, it was poorly lit, badly ventilated and overexposed to the elements. To address these problems CatalyticAction joined forces with Jusoor and SDAID to build a more permanent building that has recently been completed. CatalyticAction is an international operating multidisciplinary design team that intends to “catalyse” radically positive change in society through architectural design. Key to their practice are participatory design, sustainable architecture and an active involvement of social groups in the construction process. The design and construction of the Jarahieh School for Syrian refugees is a perfect example of this approach. It was built by adaptively reusing a pavilion donated by Save the Children Italy, shipped to Lebanon from its original location at the 2015 Milan Expo. By repurposing the pavilion CatalyticAction created a new school with bright, naturally lit classrooms and spaces for recreation. This redevelopment resulted in a stimulating environment for children who have to endure life within the harsh conditions of an informal refugee settlement. As a space of safety, it also provides children with the opportunity to grow and develop confidence. The walls and roofs of the school were insulated with sheep’s wool, a solution that CatalyticAction developed together with Maria Gomez Javaloyes, an expert from Spain. The wool proved to be an ideal material for protecting children from fluctuations in temperature and noise disturbance from other classrooms. Working with local wool also enabled CatalyticAction to collaborate with local women and farmers. With their experience in cleaning, drying and preparing the wool, women made an essential contribution to a construction process that is typically dominated by men. The design of the Jarahieh School was directly informed by participatory exercises with school children and teachers. By making it a community project CatalyticAction aimed to improve social cohesion both within the settlement and with neighbouring Lebanese communities. The project presented an opportunity to work together on what would become a shared facility. The inclusive approach of this project also involved transferring skills and building know-how to local labourers from the Jarahieh community.