Bee Breeders have selected winners of the Hong Kong Pixel Homes competition, seeking to address the pressures of expanding populations and urban growth on existing housing markets. The competition asked for solutions which would reconsider our entrenched conventional forms of housing with “formal, technological, and material strategies predicated on modularity and repetition”. In announcing the competition results, the jury applauded the exploration of density, amenity and public/private adjacency in the winning schemes, recognizing their consideration for novel approaches to domestic culture and tradition.
The competition winners, including noted ‘Green’ and ‘Student’ schemes, are set out below.
First Prize
Towers within a Tower: Lap Chi Kwong, Alison Von Glinow, Kevin Lamyuktseung
The winning scheme ‘Towers within a Tower’ reimagined the idea of vertical living. Rather than typical stacked apartments, individual units are staggered vertically, establishing a repetitive module for adapted use across Hong Kong. A stepped façade between floors allows for more exposure to natural light, whilst also incorporating circulation and courtyards.
By re-thinking the typical rental unit, the project re-postulates common urban housing. The woven circulation offers opportunities for chance encounters and shared narrative, re-imagining the idea of the street and neighbourhood. The vertical stacking of individual units develops a new tower paradigm, taking advantage of amenities more commonly provided in the sprawling expanse of single family neighborhoods, while engaging the end user in direct dialogue with the scale of the city - Jury comments.
Second Prize
Vertical Village: François Chantier, Maria Fernandez
The second place proposal was hailed for its reformulation of typical domestic typologies in order to solve Hong Kong’s housing crisis. Using the vernacular gable, the scheme offers a varied sectional treatment to each module, providing a dynamic, rich spatial variety whilst helping to form an interconnected vertical village. A robust morphology, along with simplified post-and-beam construction results in a scheme which is both adaptable, economical, and flexible.
Third Prize + BB Student Award
Upside - Down Machine: Yukang Yang, Jingwen Cui / Beijing University of Technology
The third place proposal draws inspiration from the Metabolist capsule tower, furthering the micro-unit dwelling as a mechanized zone for flexibility, aesthetic appeal, and efficiency. Circulation and bathrooms are contained in a fixed central core, whilst living spaces rhythmically rotate and interchange. The scheme drew praise for its critique of the dystopian future of technical solutions to the housing crisis, offering an exacerbation of the problematic tendencies of urban living. Whilst not proposed as a firm solution, the scheme relies on the optimistic vision of the inherent fun in “relaying the activity of the private domestic sphere in a theater of spectacle for the public realm”.
BB Green Award
Hong Kong Pixel Homes - Lanterns of Lives: Danaiporn Pongamornprom, Thongchai Wongsrisuppakul, Veeramon Suwannasang.
News via: Bee Breeders.
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