Agro-housing, Wuhan, China
From Archiplanet
| Agro-Housing | |
| Designer | Knafo Klimor Architects |
| Location | Wuhan, China |
| Date | |
| Building Type | Multi-Family Housing |
| Climate | Warm Temperate |
| Context | Suburban |
| Architectural Style | High Tech |
| Street Address | |
| Notes |
Contents |
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| Building Details | |
| Client | Living Steel |
| Area | 10,000 sq.m. |
| Program | 150 apartments, multi stories green house, tenants club and kindergarten |
| Awards | Winner, China category, LivingSteel Competition 2007 |
Agro-housing, the winning design for Living Steel's 2007 International Competition for Sustainable Housing, designed for Wuhan, China, blends urban and rural living by creating vertical greenhouse spaces between high-rise apartments. The Agro-housing concept encourages tenants to produce their own food, reduces commuting needs and provides a green community.[1]
Knafo Klimor Architects developed this concept with concern for predictions that soon 50% of China's one billion people will live in its cities, a trend mirrored in many developing countries in the world. The architects observe that massive urbanization displaces communities, dissipating existing traditions and heritage, as well as placing a strain on energy resources and infrastructure. The Agro-housing concept presents a new urban and social vision that addresses this chaotic urbanization problem by creating a new order in the city and, more specifically, in the housing environment. The idea behind Agro-housing is to create a space close to home where families can produce their own food supply according to their own abilities, tastes and choices to promote independent living, freedom and potentially provide additional income. Additionally, these greenhouse spaces become a natural gathering place for the community to interact. Agro-housing is a place for living, but it is essentially a model for a new urbanity, contributing to the preservation of traditions and community values and diminishing the trials of rural migration. [2]
Agro-Housing is composed of two parts: the apartment's tower and the vertical greenhouses. The greenhouses are multi-floor structures woven into the fabric of the building, and designed for easy cultivation of crops such as vegetables, fruits, flowers and spices in a soil-less medium equipped with a drip irrigation system that re-uses grey water. The greenhouse climate is controlled through natural ventilation and a heating system. A roof-top terrace garden offers open-air community green space for recreation and informal gathering. A sky club on the roof is designed to host social gatherings and celebrations, and a kindergarten on the ground floor keeps young children close to home and family. The individual apartments were designed for maximum flexibility when arranging interior spaces in order to accommodate family life changes over time, including integration of a work space. The building's footprint was minimized in order to free the ground surface for gardening and rainwater harvesting. Paving is limited and made of recycled materials. [1]
With Agro-housing, Knafo Klimor Architects envisions a community that can provide its own food, jobs and saleable goods right where the people live, gifting residents with the resources for self-reliance within an urban setting.
Watch Movie: Agro-Housing at Haifa Mediterranean Biennale of Contemporary Art
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[edit] References
[edit] External Links
- Project Page on Architects' Website
- Movie: Agro-Housing Haifa Mediterranean Biennale of Contemporary Art
- Living Steel announcement of winners of 2nd International Architecture Competition for Sustainable Housing
- Architectural Review, December 2007- Living Steel 2007 winners, pg 91-98
- Houses of Steel
