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Posts Tagged ‘Retrofit’

Temporary Retrofit: Micro-Dwellings for Unoccupied Buildings

15 Oct

[ By WebUrbanist in Architecture & Houses & Residential. ]

modular housing soluation

Designed for empty warehouses or buildings under construction, these material-light shelters provide functionality for liminal interiors either past their prime not yet in use. Places like the infamous Tower of David, a restarted project previously inhabited by skyscraper squatters, would be an ideal candidate for this sort of system.

modular light house

A polyethylene-coated metal grid frames these modest shelters, serving as walls and doors and supporting interior shelves and an exterior fabric facade. A plastic-laminated plywood floor floats above concrete or whatever raw surface is found in a target structure. Nylon nets provide a degree of privacy while letting in light and can be covered by opaque cloth as well.

modular dwelling inside concrete

modular micro warehouse dwelling

modular parking lot structure

Each dwelling can be completed with just $ 1200 and while no heating or cooling is included the system is intended to work well in tropical or other climates supporting open-air living. Since a stable roof and floor are provided, the main task is simply filling in gaps for habitation.

modular dwelling interior design

modular home entrance

All(zone) drew inspiration for their Light House from traditional architecture of Thailand, often designed to be collapsed and moved as needed.

modular housing prototype

modular space visualizatoin

The light and flat-packable materials make it easy to ship these systems in conventional containers or other forms of transit, making them suitable possibilities for emergency shelters as well.

modular sleeping bed space

modular wire shelving

modular living room

The designers tested their prototype by deploying it in a parking garage and staying within their mockup module for a few nights.

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Modular Retrofit: Bamboo Micro-Homes in Deserted Factories

A pragmatic twist on visionary plug-and-play architecture, this project combines a cheap and fast-growing material with existing (abandoned) infrastructure to …
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Luxury Retrofit: New 440-Square-Foot Condo Hidden in Old Garage

Boxed in on both sides, this once-homely little garage space is now a cozy high-end condo, its rusted white corrugated metal front replaced with a …
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Live Between Buildings: Narrow Micro-Homes Fill City Gaps

Playful yet thought-provoking, this project asks: what do we do with small leftover spaces in cities … particularly in urban areas where even a few …
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Luxury Retrofit: New 440-Square-Foot Condo Hidden in Old Garage

17 Apr

[ By WebUrbanist in Architecture & Houses & Residential. ]

box-home

Boxed in on both sides, this once-homely little garage space is now a cozy high-end condo, its rusted white corrugated metal front replaced with a still-concealing wood facade serving to hide something much more dynamic inside.

garage house interior

garage house kitchen

garage house seating

Designed by FABRE/deMARIEN, this ‘100% Box’ home features white walls and ceilings, reinforcing lightness and openness toward the front of the space, an area containing a kitchen and dining room as well as a front entry deck.

garage house living room

garage bathroom inside box

garage elevated sleeping loft

A wood-paneled box in back serves all kinds of additional functions, housing a series of desk and seating built-ins, enclosing a small bathroom and supporting the elevated bedroom with bed and storage above.

garage house before

garage reconstruction

garage under construction

garage house conversion

garage house car port

The sloping roof helps provide higher ceilings in the back spaces as well as accommodating the additional needs of the raised bedroom area, with periodic sunlights to help illuminate all of the above. Enclosed on all sides, this urban infill lot reuse manages to feel spacious and open despite the limitations of its site.

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Cool Million: Famous 420 Square Foot SoHo Condo for Sale

A multifunctional masterpiece built with crowd-sourced design ideas and a small-space vision by the founder of TreeHugger, this New York City apartment is now …
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Trapdoor Secrets: Furniture Hidden Inside Floors & Ceilings

This remarkable remodel is full of fun and functional surprises ranging from ceiling-suspended swing sets, hammocks, bookshelves, tables and benches to …
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9 Amazing Apartment Interior Designs & Cool Condo Plans

Color, pattern, unexpected materials and careful editing of rustic historic architectural details make these apartment and condo remodels one-of-a-kind.
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Modular Retrofit: Bamboo Micro-Homes in Deserted Factories

09 Apr

[ By WebUrbanist in Architecture & Houses & Residential. ]

bamboo example demo unit

A pragmatic twist on visionary plug-and-play architecture, this project combines a cheap and fast-growing material with existing (abandoned) infrastructure to address the extensive needs of existing informal communities of Hong Kong.

bamboo dwelling infill plan

Putting buildings within buildings, the Bamboo Micro-Dwelling plan was born of both practical realities and city-in-the-sky ideas of Utopian Modernists like Le Corbusier.

bamboo micro dwelling factory

Designed by AFFECT-T, each basic micro-dwelling starts out at  just a few meters in length, width and height, with essential cooking, sleeping and sitting areas. Thanks to their placement inside a larger deserted structure, these units have fewer active-system, insulation and cladding demands than autonomous exterior equivalents would.

bamboo temporary home wall

bamboo factory deserted plan

Like a more formalized (less-dystopian) version of Kowloon Walled City, the design calls for community and education spaces to be built into the open spaces of the factory floors and voids between individual dwellings.

modular housing solution proposal

Within the bigger building around them, this group of “homes will be serviced through a singular backbone providing water and electricity to individual units and disposing of waste, while cooling, heating, structure, and enclosure are provided” at scale by their surroundings.

bamboo retrfofit temporary home

At the individual-unit level, flexibility “aids in the overall adaptability of the larger community as units can be joined and easily separated and altered as the population changes. “

bamboo interior dwelling configuration

The demand for such a solution definitely exists: in total, an estimated 280,000 Hong Kong residents are without permanent, stable and legal structures to call home.

bamboo loft room interior

However, these micro-dwelling deployments are conceived of not as a permanent state but, rather, a transitional set of spaces. They simply make maximum use of available materials and existing buildings to create effective temporary communities for a population that needs to be shifted off the streets and out of shacks toward sustainable long-term housing.

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Under 400 SF: New Modular Micro-Apartments for NYC

NYC faces a small-unit housing crunch. And the results are in: award-winning compact units ranging from 250 to 330 square feet each have arrived.
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Live Between Buildings: Narrow Micro-Homes Fill City Gaps

Playful yet thought-provoking, this project asks: what do we do with small leftover spaces in cities … particularly in urban areas where even a few …
Click Here to Read More »»


Slices of Home: Modular Mobile House-Shaped Micro-Rooms

Spatial separation can be as much about a feeling of enclosure as a physical divider, like this set of portable lounge structures that provide a semi-secluded …
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