Layers for communition : low-rise, high density apartments in-between urban and suburban

Abstract

Housing is one of the most fundamental subjects of architecture, not just for the basic purpose of shelter, but for the place where vitality can be transcended to the people living in them.

'Housing' rather than 'house' marks the intersection between architecture and urban design and the simultaneous existence of the individual and collective. Housing is also a form of material culture. As such, it cannot be understood without studying the cultural and economic conditions of its production. - Rem Koolhaas, 'Conversations with students'

With the gradual change in family structure, housing accommodations would be smaller as the family size reduces, however, common open space and active recreation of all types would be enlarged.

This would be a greater opportunity to integrate urban with suburban environments - the town's cultural and employment opportunities would be within easy access to the countryside and to nature.

"Architecture is an art filled with contradictions. The more we learned about these contradictions in architecture, the more they translate these contradictions into an antitheses; between discipline and freedom, between technology and environment, between modernity and tradition. But....discipline sets limits to freedom, yet it is also its container, the thing that gives it form. These two elements coexist and interact." - Herman Hertzberger, 'Lessons for students in Architecture'

The meaning of space can be clarified as dualities; between public and private, light and shadow, positive and negative, horizontal and vertical, man-made and nature, and denotative and connotative. Space is transformed into characteristic place through these changes, layers and sequences of movement.

It would undoubtedly guide urban growth toward a more humane living environment which can recover community space set against stereotypical architecture.