Studio finalised on campus : JULY 2019-NOVEMBER 2019
Co-living is a modern form of housing where residents share living space and a set of interests, values, and intentions. It’s a new take on an old idea, imagined by a millennial generation that values things like openness and collaboration, social networking, and the sharing economy. Co-habs houses are all composed of private rooms and common spaces such as a kitchen, a living room and a dining room to facilitate communication between members.
This course focuses on a classic architectural design brief – the development of a residential design project, the single house with in a context of urban village. This house is a small-scale building that is situated in an urban environment.
We will focus in the design on a very basic program; living and working, in the current development of Sydney’s urban growth. Your task is to design a domestic accommodation in a new urban context, with approximately 150 sqm program on one or two levels. You are invited to expand your own brief within given user requirements and site limitations. The design you are developing should include the following criteria: form, material, structure, site, context, program, function, precedents, atmosphere, given occupant, and a life-span for the building.
We will focus in the design on a very basic program; living and working, in the current development of Sydney’s urban growth. Your task is to design a domestic accommodation in a new urban context, with approximately 150 sqm program on one or two levels. You are invited to expand your own brief within given user requirements and site limitations. The design you are developing should include the following criteria: form, material, structure, site, context, program, function, precedents, atmosphere, given occupant, and a life-span for the building.
You will start working with a generic site and look at the single house as a typological experiment. The site will be approx. 15/20m x 15/20m, with approx. 250-400sqm, a typical suburban block of land (note that in a scale of 1:100, this site fits on an A3/297x420 for easy print and draft over). Sydney is currently undergoing an extreme transformation, doubling its residents until 2031. Agencies such as the government initiative Urban Growth NSW are the landowner, master planner and developer of large urban project portfolios. We will use a typical development as an example at Spring Farm will be a complete master planned residential community, with 19 residential lots of varied sizes.
Students will begin with a one-week ‘Concept idea” where they design a conceptual model of their house based on their assigned user identity in order to kick-start on designing architecture, thinking architecture, making architecture. The rest of the studio will be focus towards creating a social sustainable neighbourhood where residence have their own private home with their identity while sharing the common areas with others. The private spaces will be characterised based on the students own developed brief.
The overall idea of this Terrace house is to have structurally compact and organized spaces that satisfy each family comfortably. The essence of this design is to have two complementary structures whereby it initially appears as a single body/form, however, the underlying idea of the design as depicted in the plans and sections is two separate structures that are spatially disconnected. The deliberate design of the terrace to appear as a single structure emphasizes its focus on spatial planning and organization as both structures appear to perfectly complement each other and fit like a “jig-saw puzzle” comfortably satisfying two families. The skylights and the openings of the houses convey the essence of the house on light entry, whereby the strategic cross cut in the roof as clearly shown in the sections accentuates this idea through directing the light to the focal points of each structure for equal maximum light entry to both houses.
The perfect proportionality of the plans/spaces is deliberate to further reiterate the spacial organization as to highlight the focus of functionalism kn each space.
Whilst the structures are separated and parallel to each other, the notion of private and public spaces is approached by having two courtyards on the first level that can be shared by both structures as well as a roof (of the first floor) where a fireplace is installed. This approach in this design is to emphasize the importance of a shared space as well as a private spaces which are found in each structure separately.
