Over the past years, collective living has become a solution many city dwellers turn to. It is usually a stand-alone structure or a group of buildings that include both individual, private dwellings and common areas. Their main use is residential and they are often located in the center of the city, giving residents full access to a wide range of services. In today’s economy, many people prefer living in collective housing schemes where maintenance of the common areas is taken care of, while also having their individual spaces.
This week’s curated selection of Best Unbuilt Architecture highlights visionary collective housing schemes submitted by the ArchDaily community. From a housing complex in Zurich that explores the boundaries of privacy, a pre-sale property development situated in the “Garden City of Buenos Aires,” and a suburban residence in Athens, this round-up of unbuilt projects highlights how architects are moving forward from conventional residential architecture, pushing the boundary of community, collaboration, and participation.
Read on to discover 8 projects highlighting collective housing schemes submitted by the ArchDaily community and a description from the architects.
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A School for Girls in India and a Vertical Community Farm in the US: 10 Unbuilt Socially Engaged Projects Submitted to ArchDailyGrounds for Coexistence, collaborative housing in Hjertelia, Norway
salazarsequeromedina x OFMAKE x Javi Soto
The border condition at the site--not truly city, not fully countryside--provokes a different approach to density inGrounds for Coexistence, our collective housing proposal for Hjertelia, Norway. Our approach is to stack the traditional models of farmland, domestic space, and work, one over the other, to foment contemporary synergies between them. We neutralize the house's footprint by sandwiching it between two productive grounds. Density creates opportunities for metabolic cycles to link a richer, more heterogeneous mix of activity.
ECKE in Switzerland
A simple orthogonal volume contains 22 housing units and generous shared spaces. The slight twist of the two cores generates systematic exceptions, diagonal views, and a discreet imprint of what is shared on what is private. From the scale of the city to that of the private space within the apartments, the project proposes a gentle dialogue between the private and the public–a negotiation sometimes favoring the one, sometimes the other. Thus, the ground floor is accessible by two generous entrances, porous and transparent. The elongated morphology of the entrance area allows the courtyard vegetation to be perceived from the sidewalk.
Sunny Gardens in Mali
Öznur Çağlayan Architectural Design Studio
Sunny Gardens project is located in the rapidly developing state of West Africa. The primary strategic approach is to create fast and clean production with low carbon emissions on the site. The modular structures to be produced contain characteristics that refer to traditional architecture and carry passive design strategies due to climatic disadvantages.
Accommun Residential Building in Iran
This project is an attempt at resilience against an uncertain economy and the imposition of an ideological lifestyle on today’s Tehran. The Accomun project is a residential ecosystem at the forefront of contemporary architecture that advances in generating sustainable and adaptable solutions considering economic, cultural, and political conditions at different periods.
The design is based on a clear understanding of decision-making establishments in construction. This approach reduces excessive dependencies on initial decisions and aims to increase the benefits for residents and builders. The best buildings are those with an adaptable performance, compliant use standards, and the most resilient towards changing lifestyles over time. The Accomun buildings offer the possibility of different forms of shared ownership and introduce a new concept of "community.
Terra Building, Villa Devoto in Buenos Aires, Argentina
Roberto Scaia arquitecto & asoc.
Terra Building, Villa Devoto is a pre-sale property development that offers 2-, 3-, and 4-room apartments. It is located at the intersection of Habana Street 3372 and San Martín Avenue 6495 in a low-density residential neighborhood known as the “Garden City of Buenos Aires,” which boasts lush vegetation, abundant tree coverage and cobblestone streets. It is located at the highest point in the city adjacent to several tourist sites, including the Ceci Palace, Immaculate Conception Seminary, Sirius Lebanese Hospital, Villa del Parque commercial corridor, and the Wine District.
K33 Students Residences in Greece
K33 Student Residences is a 4-apartment building above the campus in the heart of Thessaloniki. It is an example of making the most of a 68 sqm plot to get a 206 sqm building. Interaction between the exterior and interior is achieved by balancing the building’s solid volume and void. The skin of the building works either as a border to the urban environment offering privacy to its tenants or as a threshold to city life.
Ca Na Sole in Spain
Flexible housing building, providing an urban and social response to the neighborhood needs, with lightweight, fast construction, passive sustainable measures, and social gathering spaces. The proposal is for a building capable of providing an urban response, relating to the public space it delimits while at the same time leading the user to the most intimate scale of the dwelling. On Fornaris Street, the historical axis of the neighborhood, the primary access, and the neighborhood's premises are arranged, integrating and making the project visible in the community. The main façade is divided to adapt to the small grain of the neighborhood, while the roof recalls the industrial past, allowing a wide variety of uses.
Residential Building in Glyfada, Athens
Oikonomakis Siampakoulis architects
Situated in the suburb of Glyfada, at the south edge of the Athens metropolitan area, this residential building seeks to question both the surrounding urban landscape and the popular typology of polykatoikia (the Greek term for the multistory residential building). We created a solid 4-level, 990sqm structure with a green cement exterior finish. Instead of sterilized glass balconies, we designed cozy outdoor and semi-outdoor spaces that appear as interior extensions during most of the spring, summer, and autumn months. Additionally, we built planters into all the balconies to enhance privacy, encourage residents to take over the building’s facades and treat the organism as a vertical garden. This unplanned phenomenon can evolve and grow during the lifetime of the building.
HOW TO SUBMIT AN UNBUILT PROJECT
We highly appreciate the input from our readers and are always happy to see more projects designed by them. If you have an Unbuilt project to submit, click here and follow the guidelines. Our curators will review your submission and get back to you in case it is selected for a feature.
This article is part of the ArchDaily Topics: The Contemporary Home, proudly presented by BUILDNER.
BUILDNER celebrates architecture competitions as an effective tool for achieving progress by fostering groundbreaking ideas that push the industry forward. “Through academic and project competitions, we are building an inclusive and diverse community of architects and designers, by promoting critical topics such as affordable, sustainable and small-scale housing to address global challenges. Our goal is to inspire the next generation of designers to propose innovative solutions and challenge the status quo.”
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