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Projects

Neighborhood Site Plan Assemblies

The studio developed three permutations of how the various typological approaches and techniques could be synthesized and employed at the neighborhood scale. Each team developed their own programmatic elements, selected the specific site to be developed, and the type of housing to be used. Some teams used current Sekisui House housing prototypes, others used a combination of buildings developed by the Japan Housing Architecture Studio that was conducted concurrently.

Projects

Descriptions of the final project topics can be found in the table below. The final projects and reports can be seen on the class web site.

PROJECT TITLES DESCRIPTIONS
The Living Community

Principles

Site and infrastructure development for a community integrated in ecology.

- Bioregionalism

- Stream Restoration

- Completing the Hydrological Cycle

- Passive Housing and Climactic Positioning

- Agriculture as Learning

- Density Progression
Shoku to Tsunagaru Machi

Goals and objectives

- Promote integrated and local infrastructure solutions that treat all waste waters runoff on site.

- Provide necessary agricultural land to significantly reduce the community's future reliance on food imports.

- Reduce heating/cooling energy needs through optimal siting of houses in well-sheltered, South-facing areas.

- Create community and connection between housing developments with central placement of amenities such as a school, scenic wetland, community center, and farming center.
Bento Machi

Concept

Community design based on a modular residential block scalable to serve public and town-scale functions. Modules are self-contained units managing rainwater run-off, gray water, wastewater, energy, and food production. Our design is meant to explore a site-level application of our modules, with necessary non-residential systems to support our intervention on the town scale.

Principles

Carrying capacity: the built environment relies on natural systems, which have finite limits, so we must respect and understand these limits and design in accordance with them. Housing modules are based on the logic of system spatial requirements and imply an upward population limit for a given area.

Flexibility: programmatic needs, demographics, and demand change drastically over time. An optimal design possesses the flexibility to adapt to these changes. Our housing modules can be added and linked into the transportation grid without significant difficulty. Spatial Definition and Optimal Movement: establish organizational structure in Tama using orienting elements such as place, path, node, axis/datum, and landmark, and connect these elements with a logical transportation network that follows topography.