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Recently I took a part in the International competition hosted by Building Trust international. The competition seeks solutions for a low-cost ($30,000) single occupancy house within an urban area of a developed country. This was an opportunity for me to implement ideas which I have been preoccupied with during last 3 years. These ideas are about small space.

LOCATION
Dundee City, Angus, Scotland, UK: population 152,320 (2008)

HOUSING FACTS
There are growing signs of affordable housing shortages in Dundee City area.
   *In the last year 863 social sector properties have been lost through sale or demolition.
   *There were 1,252 households assessed as homeless in 2011-2012.
   *The total number of households on the main council housing list, which includes the transfer list, was 8,518 in March 2011.
   *43,000 properties in Dundee City currently fail the Scottish Housing Quality Standard.
Schelter Scotland [online] Available from: http://scotland.shelter.org.uk/housing_issues/get_your_housing_facts/dundee_city

CURRENT TENDENCIES
In the past decade Dundee City Council has carried out a large scale demolition programme to deal with inadequate housing.
Demolition significantly is changing the skyline of the city and its density.
There is very little activity in the building sector at this moment with rare exceptions of new homes being built and
some old being refurbished. 

HOUSING PATTERN
Dundee is generally characterised by low density housing, with relatively large green areas - parks and gardens.
The most common housing types:
1.Victorian terraced tenements, mainly four storeys high.
2.Significant feature - detached family houses creates sub-urban character only 1km distance from the city centre.
3.In proposed area significant part is occupied by two-storey detached houses for 4 households. 

CLIMATIC FEATURES
Dundee has an average of 1400 hours of sunshine per year which makes it the sunniest city in Scotland.

ALLOTMENTS
“Due to a desire from people to know the origin of their food and because of the recent rise in cost of
food prices there has been resurgence in demand for allotments Scotland-wide and in Dundee.
There are 13 allotment sites in Dundee with responsibility for a total of 600 plots.
Allotment Security has been identified as a problem in many areas of the UK, with many sites
suffering from incidents, vandalism and theft.”
Scottish Allotments and Gardens Society [online] Available from: http://www.sags.org.uk/docs/AllotmentStrategies/DundeeStrategyConsultation.pdf

 
 

THE SITE
The site is located in Dundee's West End approximately 1.5km from the city centre.
It is near to green areas of Balgay Hill and Victoria Park.
The site is resided by City Road Allotments which is owned by City Road Allotments Association.
There are 64 plots of sizes 15x20m located on South faced slope. 
Plot-holders are diverse but mostly they are retired elderly persons who have a free time to spend in the allotment.

SITE SECTION

CONCEPT


Single-person household is the most expensive, energy and space consuming living model in the urban environment.
Therefore its dwelling design should take into account many factors and incorporate wide range of compensatory qualities to be sustainable.

LOCAL CONTEXT
Design looks for ADAPTABLE solution which after small transformations could be used in different environments.
However, the original context is urban Dundee area with its building typology and housing situation.

SOCIALISATION FACTOR
People by nature are social beings therefore even single-person household dwelling should be involved in some community links.
Design looks for a BALANCED solution which provides both INTIMACY and OPENNESS, SECLUSION and INTERACTIVITY.

USER
There are two main potential target groups for the proposed design in the proposed site:

1st group are HOMELESS people who are interested in a healthy “green” lifestyle.
City Council provides them with low cost houses,
whereas land owner lets the plots for a typical price.
Allotments make gains from PERMANENT INHABITANTS
who provides safety and order of the area.

2nd group are persons who already lease a plot and
owns a flat which is too large or too expensive for them.
In this case these persons could move to affordable
low cost houses but their flats will be available for others. 

TRANSFORMATION SCENARIOS
Design looks for TRANSFORMABLE solution which provides FLEXIBILITY of space for possible life’s changes.


1. Single person finds another person with whom to share a time and space. Design provides ADDITIONAL living space for up to 2 adults and 1 child.

2. Houses could be located in such a way that provides
possibility to join them together with a common
space or just a canopy.

COMPACTNESS AND SPACIOUSNESS
Design operates with ENERGY EFFICIENT form to achieve COHERENT solution which provides both COMPACTNESS and SPACIOUSNESS.

Continuous and unobstructed movement through the house’s daily life without corridors.

Observing and interacting with the surrounding environment.

Hexagon has a low perimeter for a given area and straight edges to provide functionality.

Key areas: location and features

Layout is divided by zones, zones is separated by “service walls”

SUSTAINABILITY
Design uses SUSTAINABLE energy solutions.

Roof derives directly from the layout and forms six faces at a 40 degree angle which is most effective to gain from solar energy in Scotland area.

Solar PV panels could be located on 3 of 6 roof faces which allows operate effectively (over 90% of the maximum) during the day in Scotland’s changeable weather conditions. There is possible to place 18 a typical 185 Watt solar panels (1.6x08m) with total area 23m2. Therefore it creates up to 3.3kW array. Potential output of this array could reach 2,500kWh per year which is around 80% of electricity consumption from average single-person household (˜3,000kWh per year).
Surplus electricity could be sold back to the national grid or
collected in a electrical storage (off-grid).
Based on data from http://www.energysavingtrust.org.uk

Version ‘M’ with total area 58m2 provides living space in two levels for up to 2 adults and 1 child.

Site plan. Design provides flexibility of locating houses on the site, effective use of land, insolation and unobstructed views.

 Ground floor plan

  Section through entrance

Section through living area

 North elevation

East elevation

South elevation

West elevation

 View from City Road

Shortlisted!

I am one of 40 shortlisted from more than 400 entrants in student category in the HOME competition by Building Trust International.
http://www.buildingtrustinternational.org/ 

Awarded!

Today I received The Nicoll Russell Award as the best 2nd year student. It was a great pleasure and excitement for me to get credit for my efforts and struggling during this year.

The school. Result

After several transformations finally I optimized  my design to reach clarity of organization and distillation of the overall concept. It was hardly to give up with some interesting architectural solutions which was embodied in my design but conflicted each other.  

Site plan

 Groun floor plan

Classroom plan

Section through entrance area and dining hall

Section through classroom, corridor and staff block

All project on the wall

See more at STUDY WORKS.

The school. Process

  Organisation scheme sketch No2

Organisation scheme sketch No4

 Organisation scheme sketch No7

Context. Forming lines

Access. Pupils and supply

 Access and circulation. Community

 School as a "micro-city". Streets and blocks.

 Functions

 Circulation. Pupils

 Circulation. Administration and staff.

Circulation. Community

 Levels of privacy for pupils

 Transparency. Natural light and views

Learning. Together and individual

Place for exposition

 Exterior sketch. South view

Interior sketch. Assembly hall

Interior sketch. Corridor, break-out area, cloakrooms

Structural model without sloped roof light structure

 

The school. Concept

Project "The school" continues the work on learning space that begun with an outdoor classroom design last semester.
The object of investigating is a primary school for 200  pupils.
The study project envisages moving existing Park Place Primary School to the new site on the Tay Riverside. 

The most significant features of the site are following. The site is bordered by cobbled and noisy Magdalen Yard Road along its Northern edge and railway along its Southern edge. Trains pass it from 3 directions every 15-20 minutes.

The site is well exposed to the sun all day long. Prevailing South - West winds lose a bit of their strong because embankment of Riverside approach works as windbreak.
The brief covers 4 main groups of accommodations: communal (assembly/ gym hall, dining room, kitchen etc); teaching (classrooms and all subordinate areas); administration (staff rooms) and ancillary (storage and plant room).  

The main aspects which have driven the concept of the school's design are the surrounding context and several ideas about an ideal school.  
On the site particularly significant role is played by Tay bridge whose rhythm of arches and contrasts between structural elements and voids inspired for the main architectural concept and structural design. 

As life is full of contrasts and contains the full spectrum of colours so school's architecture does. My design reflects these contrarieties and emphasises them through the contrastive modes of expression such as: inside-outside, structure-content, silence-noise, urban-nature, enclosure-openness, dark-light, massiveness-lightness, publicity-intimacy. 

School provides frame and space within it which then could be filled with content by curriculum, community, staff and pupils. There is strong backbone which holds and protects and there is content which embodies freedom, flexibility and openness. 

 Parti

Another important aspect I have borne in mind is Montessori method with its 'free work'. That means active pupil's participation in setting aims and creating learning process. Whereas that means changes in the organisation of classroom. 'Pupil can either work alone, with a partner or in a group'(Muller, 2002:127).

Precedents I found inspiring:

Montessori school in Delft by Herman Hertzberger

Access and circulation

 Articulated classroom

Frankfurt Sossenheim 'Kita' nursery competition entry

by Arup Associates

 Access and circulation

 Levels of privacy

Section

All this led me towards multilayered concept where several ideas play equal role. 

*The edge between urban dynamic and "silent" presence of nature. It is formed by street pattern and surrounding buildings.

The site

Rigid, massive "backbone" on the street side protects from noise and forms "urban pattern"

Loose, light, transparent volume on the South side provides

views and natural light. 'Green' roof makes school as part of existing environment and reduces visual impact on surrounding tenements. 

  Glazed contour articulates both inner and outer space 

*School as a micro-city where children develop and grow accordingly both curriculum given by society and their own inner world. Therefore school is designed as a city where are streets and plazas for socialising, houses for learning and small courtyards and bays for contemplation.

This city is open for local community which plays significant role in school's development. Thus "micro-city" is rounded with "public belt" which provides several spaces for public activities and creates tight links with community. It continues within a school where spaces such as gym, dining hall is open for local community too. 

'Public belt' 

In section building relates to the existing topography and 'opens' for visitors gradually with increasing height of space. Building is single storey in order to obscure views from tenements as little as possible.   

Section through main entrance and dining hall

Section through classroom, corridor and administration block

Organisation scheme

*Classroom as a scale unit for the whole school. It could provide uniformity of the shape, scale, structure and materials. 

I came to the hexagonal form as very interesting to explore in my design.

Structural schemes