A design workshop study for a schematic residential prototype conducted with M.Arch students tested and applied the rules and strategies derived from the literature- and case study research, using the case-study diagram templates as design tools.    

The unit ribbons have been adopted from the case-study research as poly-valent layouts and applied to the building foot print, enabling to accommodate multiple forms of co-habitation and their adaptation to changing circumstances in people’s life-cycle.   

Questioning the conventions of efficient, vertical transfers from ground level as the only common domain to one’s unit, the design aims for ‘spatial integrity’, designs vertical connectivity as a social experience and invites onto detours.  Every five levels are combined to form smaller neighbourhoods. At their lower level, a partly open void-deck-in-the-air, people move from one elevator core to another that only connects to the four levels above. The occupied areas at this void deck in the air they pass by on their way follow the same poly-valent layout as on the unit level but infuse semi-public areas, such as day-care and other social facilities, or live-work units.   

Horseshoe-shaped unit clusters with manageable numbers of residents as prerequisite for social bonding have been iterated with also digital tools as deliberate forms that with their geometry and size amplify visual and physical encounter. Two horseshoes are connected to one another as split-levels, inviting for vertical journeys across different levels and to settle down on the stairs.   

M.Arch students: Audrey CHIN Mian Yee, KOH Xian Zhe  

Advisors: Oliver HECKMANN, Aarthi JANAKIRAMAN, CHONG Zhuo Wen