A Case Study Into Modular Projects

So at this point I have created a handful design ideas, but before I go further and start sampling, or choose the designs I want to take to the next stage I decided little case study into 6 projects, that focused on modularity or innovative ideas for student accommodation. I chose to limit the number of projects I would look at because the focus for these weeks is the design development, I could've researched all the buildings I had on my list, but that would've been at the expense of drawing design ideas, and sampling them. As I have said I want to do a better job in this stage and so far I haven't really, and here I am researching an additional 6 buildings, but I really think these projects will greatly help. The initial research was less specific, and I think it's essential that I also research projects that try and tackle the same problem as me, so that's the thinking behind this. The six buildings are: Tube housing (Guy Dessauges), Habitat 67 (Moshe Safdie), Nakagin Capsule Tower (Kisho Kurokawa), Container city I&II, FAB house (TDO) and Dyson Institute student housing (WilkinsonEyre).

TUBE HOUSING- Guy Dessauges(1960s)

Tube housing was only a hypothetical project and never went further than the model phase. Dessauges was exploring how the cylinder could be used to make a house and stack them, as the circular roof was a lot more resistant than a flat roof.

Now I don't actually think you could build that, but to me its interesting because it's really experimental and fun. I like the idea of having ur central pillar and then floors with nothing where you can add your modules and so on. I also like that it's using non conventional shapes, in terms of practicality it's not the best, circles, because there is wasted space, but nonetheless Dessauges scales them so that a 6ft person would have no problem. I would not have tried to use circles myself, at least not for the modules, maybe the facade, because of the wasted space. Last thing I really like is the incorporation of the balconies, I myself would like to include balconies.

HABITAT 67- Moshe Safdie (1967)

Habitat 67 was proposed by a 23 year old Safdie and the project started as a university thesis in 1961. Fast-forward to today and it is one of the only successful modular housing project to have ever been made. The whole project is just the same prefabricated "boxes" assembled in different ways to create different houses, depending on who the space is for. Now the project didn't succeed in keeping costs down which is one of the main ideas behind modular building, but it did however offer a completely new take on dense housing projects, it wasn't the traditional high rise, now inhabitants had roof gardens, and an abundance of light which was unprecedented. I chose this building because of how it approaches the repetition of the boxes. It doesn't just pile them on top of one another, Habitat may not have been successful cost wise, but I don't think that was due to the choice to offset the boxes, and in any way the building wouldn't have been able to offer what it does without the choice to offset the apartments. I would like to try and design something in the same idea that doesn't just go with the classical high rise.

NAKAGIN CAPSULE TOWER- Kisho Kurokawa (1972)

Nakagin tower really embodied the idea of modularity unlike others because the modules could be interchanged although they were never actually changed the possibility was there. Each room was 10m2 which is also similar scale to the rooms for the student I'd imagine. Once again I really like the way the repetition is used, and it is again just done by rotating certain modules, or having them protrude further than others. I find the building to be quite visually pleasing as-well, it has a lot more character then normal high rises I find. The ideas behind are what is really interesting, the idea of metabolism and a building that grows and changes with its inhabitant is really cool.

CONTAINER CITY I&II- Container City (2001 & 2002)

Container city is a group of people that offer buildings made from recycled shipping containers. Their system allows for a huge reduction in cost and building time, because the need for foundation is lessen, and the containers can be furbished in a factory and just craned into space. That also means less disturbance when building, and being more eco friendly. In short the use of containers is great when it comes to logistics, but I find that there are restrictions. A normal container is 2.6 m high, 2.4m wide and either 6m or 12m long, so the length is not the problem, but after insulation, plumbing etc you can eat a lot of that space and it is already quite narrow and not that high. Another restriction is that it's a rectangle and that it's in metal. Covering the outside of the container would kind of defy the whole point of recycling containers because it would be extra material and cost, and I don't like the option of just painting them in various colours because I don't like coloured buildings. The roof of a container is not structurally that strong either so extra reinforcements need to be added. Although I've made it sound as if it's a huge encumbrance I actually really like container buildings, and I will try and get ideas down where containers would be used.

FAB HOUSE- TDO Architecture (2018)

One of the biggest take-away with this projects was how well the spaces were designed, it is compact spaces but that is not at the cost of beautiful, modern and spacious spaces. A big part in that is the amount of natural light that the spaces get. I really like this project because it doesn't have the prefabricated feel to it, the houses look like normal modern terrace homes, and not like pods, I also like the pods but this too. But this project shows that design doesn't have to be sacrificed when doing prefabricated/ modular homes. I am a fan of the materials used also, especially inside which has a lot of birch wood and white which helps heighten the amount of light.

DYSON INSTITUTE STUDENT HOUSING- WilkinsonEyre (2019)

With the FAB houses this project is the lowest, with only reaching 3 storey heights at maximum. I chose to research this one because I had said previously I did not want to build flat, and span it over a large area because I thought it would look a bit creepy, however this project does it splendidly, because it organises them in clusters that varies every now giving each cluster its own identity and making the whole site feel more lively. This just encourages me to also explore this idea of building quite low, because this project feels like a little village and I like that. Last thing I want to talk about is the floor layouts which are great. They are essentially tiny homes, fully equipped, but yet the rooms feel very spacious, and that is also due to the light they get through those huge windows. This project was also the only one that was student accommodation.