Associative Design --- Synthetic Vernacular

Core Research Program at Berlage-Institute

The aim of the research is to design a site specific housing environment by means of associativity. The research is applied in Shanghai, in the district of Qing Pu. Nowadays China faces the question of how to develop a housing environment which is not a modernist type purely applied to accommodate the mass housing problem, but how to develop a synthetic vernacular; a form of housing that evolves from its historical heritage, its site specificity, and at the same time able to present alternatives to tabular rasa urbanism.

This project tries to learn from the spatial organization of the vernacular models, using parametric design technique to explore possible model of modern Chinese living, offering alternative strategies for middle income people.

The neighborhood model is based on the construction of a series of associative protocols, transformed and developed by local economical forces, housing policy, ecological environment, and cultural or social demands of Chinese people. They are developed mainly on 3 different scales, housing units, housing clusters, and the whole neighborhood.

A private skywell is introduced to give each unit a better physical performance, but more importantly, its spatial quality creates a modern way of chinese-living. However the form of the unit varies, the skywell is inbetween the active living space and still zone, generating a rich package of room arrangements. Rules are set with the constraints of the staircase to ensure the homogenous quality of all the skywells. The skywell in each floor negotiates with each other to give spaces to one above or below. This results in a semi-exterior space in each unit, and altogether forming different 3D characters.

With composition of pairs of units, a shared courtyard is formed within the housing cluster. Depending on the size variations, number of exits, and distribution of units, different junctions and street patterns can be generated, which defines its accessibility and collectiveness.

In opposition to the existing top-down assignment, a self-organizing system is established to allow specific programs to emerge. Each program requires different conditions in terms of land use, ground areas, location and specific preferences due to the domestic behaviors. Therefore, the size of the courtyards always adapts to accommodate different programs.

The morphological process performs in such an evolutionary way that it's never a simple repetition of courtyard arrangements, but an associative relationship affecting one upon each other. It provides a basis upon which programs in different domains and locations can be correlated and made to reinforce the vividness of the living environment.

The street pattern turns out to be a mixture of configurational properities of moderate connectivity. The frequency of 't ratio' and ' x ratio' , as well as the diversity in junction types ensure an efficient circulation system without losing the hierachical accessibility, producing the ambiguous perception and a sense of security like the vernacular do.

Final Video Presentation : http://www.dysturb.net/2007/associative-design-berlage/#more-239