Box inside Box inside Box

exploring the similarity and difference of facade treatments for different climates

60 sec. Elevator Speech

Home or housing should be a place that provides comfort to the occupants, including climatic comfort, social environment and health of the occupants. It should be a place that people are willing to go back and to spend time in. these are not easy to achieve in a more densely populated cities, especially for the low income families. Therefore I want to explore the possibility of designing a high performance housing in a densely populated location that can enhance the quality of life of the occupants.  The method of designing a high performance housing will start with the development of prefabricating modules that becomes the framework that has variables for different climates and regions. When the framework and modules become common and universal, it leads us the possibilities of high quality living condition becoming a standard for everyone. 

1+3+9 v.1.2

The development of high performance building modules can help to enhance the quality of the life of the occupants in a densely populated housing location.

IDEALLY:

Home is a place that provides comfort for the occupants; it’s a place that closely relate to everyone’s daily life. 

Home is a place for the younger generation to grow up and the older generation to retire, therefore, the health of the living environment is a crucial factor.

Home is a place that everyone is willing to go back to either to spent their time alone or with the family.

BUT:

If you can never see the natural daylight or feel the natural breeze from the outside, will you be willing to go back to such a place after work?

Social environments, the neighbors, are important to our everyday life, but conflicts will start when there is no personal space or privacy inside high density housing.

For many others, there is no choice but to stay in their house for most time of the day, so, it is important to have healthy living condition provide by the built environment.

THEREFORE:

Development of high performance module can help to set a universal framework for high performance housing.

The building module can be made with pre-fabrication technique as a basic framework that allows variation applications for different climates, orientations and regions.

Too many pre-fabricated housing modules did not take into consideration of site-specific or culture context.

The framework of the module itself should be universal, but the modules will start to vary based on the context for each specific application.

The high performance housings should not only provide comfort and quality of life to the occupants, but also become part of the larger sustainable built environment.

Quality of living condition and high performance housing should be a common standard for everyone in everyone location.

Method V.2

This method is more topic/system/method specific (with an application using the thesis method finding) instead of site and program specific with ways of achieving the goals.

Project Time Line

Method

1+3+9 v.1.1

There is a potential to develop high performance housing in a densely populated location to enhance the quality of life of the occupants.

IDEALLY:

Home is a place that provides comfort for the occupants; it’s a place that closely relate to everyone’s daily life. 

Home is a place for the younger generation to grow up and the older generation to retire, therefore, the health of the living environment is a crucial factor.

Home is a place that everyone is willing to go back to either to spent their time alone or with the family.

BUT:

If the housing is too dense, too cramp and too small, who wants to spent time in such a space?

If you can never see the natural daylight or feel the natural breeze from the outside, will you be willing to go back to such a place after work?

Social environments, the neighbors, are important to our everyday life, but conflicts will start when there is no personal space or privacy inside high density housing.

For many others, there is no choice but to stay in their house for most time of the day, therefore, it is important to have healthy living condition provide by the built environment.

THEREFORE:

Is it possible to design housing in a densely populated location that is fair to every unit and everyone who lives in it?

Is it possible to have the housing design goes beyond one singular design?

What if the design can be partially prefabricated but with potential to apply to many places?

The high performance housings should not only provide comfort and quality of life to the occupants, but also become part of the larger sustainable built environment.

Quality of living condition and high performance housing should not only be affordable by the rich or the ones who lives in less populated locations; it should be a common standard for everyone in everyone location.