A flexible modular design for disaster-relief housing to set a standard for conservation of space and materials in reconstructing communities.
The use of a transitional structure creates an opportunity to fully embrace the concepts of design for disassembly and prefabrication and modularity by allowing an entire unit to dismantle into individual, self-supporting and functioning components that can remain serviceable and useful to the occupant post-reconstruction.
The use of such a system, allowing for speed in delivery, as well as speed of return as it functions in an immediate radius of the previous/current home, creates an ability to maintain the existing social networks of the area, allowing for those in a community to regain their stability.
With the modular approach to design, the unit may exist throughout a structure, given spatial parameters, or within a specific space, or connected via the envelope – and these conditions directly relate to the extent of damage to the existing structure, as all the results of all disasters is the damage of a home, but to what degree the home remains has a category based range, which can be used to identify employment method.
Monday, November 2, 2009
Tuesday, September 29, 2009
1,3,9 ZWEI
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Can architecture be the design of new inhabitable space, while eliminate the consumption of new space?
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-Theoretically, the construction of a new architectural space must involve the utilization of an area in such a way that a structure will manifest upon it and render that space as available for specific uses.
-However, as time changes, so must the use of each area, and thereby the architecture must change – or so it has been held, but a building can be reconstituted, an area can be reformatted, and through these processes, the space is renewed without need for a new structure, as would apply to a factory becoming housing.
-But what of the cause of this change – if a building is destroyed internally, or partially externally, it would be condemned as uninhabitable, and a new home would go up in its wake, covering more area and utilizing further resource, while the reconstituting process transpired.
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-There are many terms for it; a half way house, a homeless shelter, a safe haven – but fundamentally, the purpose of transitional housing is the definition of itself, a unit of home for those in an in-between stage.
-This in-between stage may take place as a bridge between drug addiction and clean living, spousal abuse and therapy, eviction and move-in, exile and return, and these, brought on by natural disaster, abandonment, job loss, or conflict (and any and all things between), leave those inhabitants as former inhabitants, and leave those areas they are departed from in various stages of composure.
-A house from which a user was evicted during conflict, may reflect this conflict with broken walls, roofs, and no feel of safety; reclaiming this house would require literal reconstruction of those physically shattered objects, as well as restoration of the safety of the environment.
-A family evicted from a house have a wonderful home to return to, but no means of achieving that journey; they must seek shelter for preservation of health, as well as maintain outwards communications to regain the job stability or other economic factor that initially displaced them.
-In either case, a unit facilitating the individual needs of a single person, a couple, or a family is the desired gain – be it a home, an apartment, a hotel room or a trailer, this is the object being sought.
-But if there are no homes in the price range, or no homes where one must settle down, it is a new place that requires new architecture to create these homes – that means materials, labor, transportation, as well as the displacement of space.
-A new unit, capable of sheathing those inside from external forces, natural or otherwise, and maintaining the life needs of its inhabitants, would provide shelter, in a condensed form – a light weight, modular unit, providing a scaled down concept of the home, bringing to bear an expandable unit, which itself opens in construction from a dense packaging, as well as opening further, and attaching as required by the scale of need for those inside.
-But say this is inset into an abandoned factory, and houses 40 families; or say it is inset into a flooded-out house for one family – this conserves space, while providing the requisite shelter – but what of the transitional properties of the unit itself, and the superstructures they inhabit?
-The transitional unit for transitional housing may itself be of disassembling structure that supplies materials for the reconstitution of the superstructures, and house inside of it the tools needed for this act, with chairs being chairs, a wall being a floor, table legs becoming a bike to access a new job – this house physically provides the foundation of a new life after housing those inside.
Can architecture be the design of new inhabitable space, while eliminate the consumption of new space?
-------------
-Theoretically, the construction of a new architectural space must involve the utilization of an area in such a way that a structure will manifest upon it and render that space as available for specific uses.
-However, as time changes, so must the use of each area, and thereby the architecture must change – or so it has been held, but a building can be reconstituted, an area can be reformatted, and through these processes, the space is renewed without need for a new structure, as would apply to a factory becoming housing.
-But what of the cause of this change – if a building is destroyed internally, or partially externally, it would be condemned as uninhabitable, and a new home would go up in its wake, covering more area and utilizing further resource, while the reconstituting process transpired.
-------------
-There are many terms for it; a half way house, a homeless shelter, a safe haven – but fundamentally, the purpose of transitional housing is the definition of itself, a unit of home for those in an in-between stage.
-This in-between stage may take place as a bridge between drug addiction and clean living, spousal abuse and therapy, eviction and move-in, exile and return, and these, brought on by natural disaster, abandonment, job loss, or conflict (and any and all things between), leave those inhabitants as former inhabitants, and leave those areas they are departed from in various stages of composure.
-A house from which a user was evicted during conflict, may reflect this conflict with broken walls, roofs, and no feel of safety; reclaiming this house would require literal reconstruction of those physically shattered objects, as well as restoration of the safety of the environment.
-A family evicted from a house have a wonderful home to return to, but no means of achieving that journey; they must seek shelter for preservation of health, as well as maintain outwards communications to regain the job stability or other economic factor that initially displaced them.
-In either case, a unit facilitating the individual needs of a single person, a couple, or a family is the desired gain – be it a home, an apartment, a hotel room or a trailer, this is the object being sought.
-But if there are no homes in the price range, or no homes where one must settle down, it is a new place that requires new architecture to create these homes – that means materials, labor, transportation, as well as the displacement of space.
-A new unit, capable of sheathing those inside from external forces, natural or otherwise, and maintaining the life needs of its inhabitants, would provide shelter, in a condensed form – a light weight, modular unit, providing a scaled down concept of the home, bringing to bear an expandable unit, which itself opens in construction from a dense packaging, as well as opening further, and attaching as required by the scale of need for those inside.
-But say this is inset into an abandoned factory, and houses 40 families; or say it is inset into a flooded-out house for one family – this conserves space, while providing the requisite shelter – but what of the transitional properties of the unit itself, and the superstructures they inhabit?
-The transitional unit for transitional housing may itself be of disassembling structure that supplies materials for the reconstitution of the superstructures, and house inside of it the tools needed for this act, with chairs being chairs, a wall being a floor, table legs becoming a bike to access a new job – this house physically provides the foundation of a new life after housing those inside.
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
Sunday, September 20, 2009
On Place or On Program
On PROGRAM
As stated before, I am invested in looking at using a modular unit of structural, enclosure, programmatic systems, or the creation of a kit-of-parts that creates a regionally sensitive manner for rehabilitating an existing building into living quarters - I would personally desire to work in an area where such rehabilitation is required, either by an abundance of vacant housing and need of re-population, or from an excess of population growth into a certain area requiring immediate attention and service.
I have not visited such locales in my life, due to cost of travel, cost of time, or what have you, it hasn't happened yet. As such, I initially paired my interest with the place I am most familiar with, that being the town I grew up in. In addition, another long-running interest of mine, that of the American suburb and how, in my opinion, it is developing in the wrong direction, lead me to believe in renewing the suburb of my home town through the implementation of such modular work - however, after consideration of this for some time, I find that an area such as my home town and its affluence does not situate itself towards housing that is fast, and by necessity, less expensive, as anything inside must meet design code criteria, utilizing materials and forms of expensive natures.
Bummer.
Given this current schism between the issue I want to explore solutions for through architecture and locations that reflect my knowledge, I am uncertain as how to best proceed.
But looking towards our reading "Notes on the Adaptive Re-use of Program" by John McMorrough, I find myself looking to resolve the final programmatic elements that are of interest, and perhaps that shall enable me to look into a locale that I am familiar enough with. Consciously, I concede that a project and its program should be not only related to but dependent on the site it possesses. I do not have an answer to any critique siting that - I can only work with what I am certain of.
The notion put forth that not only can a program been seen as adaptive re-use, either by allowing the genesis of form that can be inhabited in a multitude of ways or through instilling a new use into an existing framework, but that in and of itself, program has been transformed into a number of roles, the effects of which its strength in design theory of the time could be seen as incredibly present, present as a background through, or subversively present in its absence.
The though that I felt had the strength in my mind was on Jeremy Bentham's Panopticon : "the model program, if one is interested in program as the exercise of control, would of course be the prison (108)." It would make sense that an area requiring the ultimate level of control of the actions associated with it would thereby use all methods to exact control through the design. I would say that here lies a critical distinction to be made - program as a method, or program as those integral parts creating a form. I would consider these different, and state that he is listing the former - a larger sense, "program as the exercise of control", though perhaps this is wrong - the program exercises control because all of its elements take control as a central issue. Though the language of "elements" now shifts to the latter definition. Thus we see connection between the statement of program as a larger goal, but the realities of its composition.
Back to what I feel - the architecture as the means of conserving - space, time, material, cost, life. The program thus would be the exercise of conservation, which by an understanding could be the enacting of programmatic elements in entirety that enhance the practice of conservation.
What does this mean? One could interpret that all materials utilized should embody conservation, made of only the most readily available and re-growing materials. Space should only embody then a conservative mind set - combine then, a hallway with a treadmill if it be a demand of the client, such that they may go from room to room or jog in one spot for as long as need be, with the flip of a switch. No workout room, just a hallway that would have had the workout room off of it. Cost wise, cheap. But cheap a la cost-effective - don't make a building out of cardboard in New England - rebuilding your home 30 times a year adds labor cost, time cost, and material cost in that manner.
What about basic human needs: should they be met and only met? Food. Water. Shelter. Sleep. Some form of mental stimulation. Some form of physical stimulation. If we look to "the ancients" to our time, Vitruvius, Alberti, what have you, a good wind saves health, light heals in moderate doses, but clearly, the environment is a necessary aspect of human life.
I've not tested putting a man in a house with no views or natural exposure for a lifetime - never knowing the outside world aside from leaving to work, and coming home - but the notion of "cabin fever", being "cooped up", we have all said these terms, they must have meaning.
As such, if we try to include these bare minimums, are they enough? Socialism. Not the political movement, mind you, but the surrounding context in which we thrive - what are the conservative requirements for a social interaction? A web camera, SKYPE, and an e-mail address. You can see, write to, talk to another live human being live, in real time. Is that enough? One computer. In person, perhaps that would be taken care of during work, shopping, etc. - but to contain another person in a unit, would double its minimum size, potentially.
As stated before, I am invested in looking at using a modular unit of structural, enclosure, programmatic systems, or the creation of a kit-of-parts that creates a regionally sensitive manner for rehabilitating an existing building into living quarters - I would personally desire to work in an area where such rehabilitation is required, either by an abundance of vacant housing and need of re-population, or from an excess of population growth into a certain area requiring immediate attention and service.
I have not visited such locales in my life, due to cost of travel, cost of time, or what have you, it hasn't happened yet. As such, I initially paired my interest with the place I am most familiar with, that being the town I grew up in. In addition, another long-running interest of mine, that of the American suburb and how, in my opinion, it is developing in the wrong direction, lead me to believe in renewing the suburb of my home town through the implementation of such modular work - however, after consideration of this for some time, I find that an area such as my home town and its affluence does not situate itself towards housing that is fast, and by necessity, less expensive, as anything inside must meet design code criteria, utilizing materials and forms of expensive natures.
Bummer.
Given this current schism between the issue I want to explore solutions for through architecture and locations that reflect my knowledge, I am uncertain as how to best proceed.
But looking towards our reading "Notes on the Adaptive Re-use of Program" by John McMorrough, I find myself looking to resolve the final programmatic elements that are of interest, and perhaps that shall enable me to look into a locale that I am familiar enough with. Consciously, I concede that a project and its program should be not only related to but dependent on the site it possesses. I do not have an answer to any critique siting that - I can only work with what I am certain of.
The notion put forth that not only can a program been seen as adaptive re-use, either by allowing the genesis of form that can be inhabited in a multitude of ways or through instilling a new use into an existing framework, but that in and of itself, program has been transformed into a number of roles, the effects of which its strength in design theory of the time could be seen as incredibly present, present as a background through, or subversively present in its absence.
The though that I felt had the strength in my mind was on Jeremy Bentham's Panopticon : "the model program, if one is interested in program as the exercise of control, would of course be the prison (108)." It would make sense that an area requiring the ultimate level of control of the actions associated with it would thereby use all methods to exact control through the design. I would say that here lies a critical distinction to be made - program as a method, or program as those integral parts creating a form. I would consider these different, and state that he is listing the former - a larger sense, "program as the exercise of control", though perhaps this is wrong - the program exercises control because all of its elements take control as a central issue. Though the language of "elements" now shifts to the latter definition. Thus we see connection between the statement of program as a larger goal, but the realities of its composition.
Back to what I feel - the architecture as the means of conserving - space, time, material, cost, life. The program thus would be the exercise of conservation, which by an understanding could be the enacting of programmatic elements in entirety that enhance the practice of conservation.
What does this mean? One could interpret that all materials utilized should embody conservation, made of only the most readily available and re-growing materials. Space should only embody then a conservative mind set - combine then, a hallway with a treadmill if it be a demand of the client, such that they may go from room to room or jog in one spot for as long as need be, with the flip of a switch. No workout room, just a hallway that would have had the workout room off of it. Cost wise, cheap. But cheap a la cost-effective - don't make a building out of cardboard in New England - rebuilding your home 30 times a year adds labor cost, time cost, and material cost in that manner.
What about basic human needs: should they be met and only met? Food. Water. Shelter. Sleep. Some form of mental stimulation. Some form of physical stimulation. If we look to "the ancients" to our time, Vitruvius, Alberti, what have you, a good wind saves health, light heals in moderate doses, but clearly, the environment is a necessary aspect of human life.
I've not tested putting a man in a house with no views or natural exposure for a lifetime - never knowing the outside world aside from leaving to work, and coming home - but the notion of "cabin fever", being "cooped up", we have all said these terms, they must have meaning.
As such, if we try to include these bare minimums, are they enough? Socialism. Not the political movement, mind you, but the surrounding context in which we thrive - what are the conservative requirements for a social interaction? A web camera, SKYPE, and an e-mail address. You can see, write to, talk to another live human being live, in real time. Is that enough? One computer. In person, perhaps that would be taken care of during work, shopping, etc. - but to contain another person in a unit, would double its minimum size, potentially.
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