Shinkenchiku Residental Design Competition 2019.
Theme: Living in the future
Judges: Nader Tehrani, Mark Lee, Lisa Iwamoto, Barbara Bestor, Cristina Parreño Alonso
Honorable Mention
Part 1
A House. Historical, modern and contemporary houses define today's city. It`s interior and exterior radically differs. However, all these houses participate in what we call contemporaneity. Being part of the generic and belonging to the built environment, they contribute to the complex character of the time we live in. They are not architecturally valuable but produce fabric of the city. However, they are part of the culture we live in. Their relation to the outdoor space is binary: there is the inside and there is an outside. I wonder whether the future of these relations could be slightly different? Is a Copernican turn possible?
Here, there are several transformations of a typical (generic, without qualities) plan of the American, European and Japanese house. Each plan has triggered itself a distinctive set of actions of transformation. Presented as diagrams, they suggest their morphological diversity and different cultural codes. The gradual deconstruction of existing houses will stimulate the process of stratifying them towards the outdoor space. The abstract structure of greenhouses, reinforced concrete walls, transparent, translucent and opaque elements deconstructs these houses, so new ambiances could grow. A new type of floor plan organization has been realized.
The city as we know it will gradually disappear. Heterogeneity, a state of time, is currently defined by many crises. Climate, economic, political. Crisis of identity. However, crises will redefine architecture. The form of architecture, a relative phenomenon, will accommodate the new demands of time. The size of form in architecture will change its spatial power. Physical changes will be reflected in social ones. At the border of technology and environmental awareness, a new type of architecture will emerge. Material development will create new housing benefits. Glass will get new properties. The concrete will be sophisticated. Nature will be restored.
*The title “In My Father's House There are Many Mansions” is taken from a Bible, John, 14: 2
Part 2
A City. The future is uncertain. In clues, we see it through today's world. Through fragments of the elusive but imaginable, we eagerly await for it. Concept of today is tomorrow's reality. But, how far do we look forward? Immediate or remote? Whatever the answer, I believe that nature will be reborn. Anthropocene - the superiority of man over nature, a new epoch of time in which we live, is also nature`s cry. Housing, the human need for shelter, today, needs evaluation. Nature could help us create new types of living spaces, reviving old lost habits of a particular culture. Each culture will revive its own. Balance is the key.
If an individual wants to look into the future he/she must direct his gaze twofold; one to housing, one to the city itself. There are two phenomena in architecture today: a generic city and a typical house. Both belong to the non-indigenous, inarticulate and incidental. They are not thought through. Both will certainly be part of the life of the future, however, their transformation is necessary. Their gradual disappearance may be part of our desirable future. How can we encourage this process? Architects of modernism and late modernism considered this future heroically. Could traces of these ideas be embedded in projects of the future?
Randomly selected fragments of the city will be replaced by public spaces floating in the green. In it, the right climatic conditions will be created for the emergence of new cultures. Sports, squares, parks, gardens, promenades. Desirable scenarios, caused by new housing zones, will now be placed in unexpected relations. The interweaving of programmatic housing groups with green spaces will contribute to a new way of living adequate to the desired future we truly aspire. Alberti's statement, "a big house is a small city, just like a small city is a big house could take on a new meaning...