The Right to Life

INTRODUCTION

The project started off by investigating personal understanding of the terms, ‘luxury‘ and ‘public luxury’, and how these definitions could, later on, be transformed into the built form.

‘Luxury’ in my understanding is somewhat an ideal or desire for something we would like to possess or to experience in the future that we do not currently have, and once we do, it is deemed mundane or taken for granted. Therefore, the idea of time plays a vital role in the definition of luxury.

‘Public luxury’ is understood to be a place where everyone is welcome, and has the same rights and freedom, at the same time rejecting a culture of consumption. This idea of uniform continuity and equal access was inspired by Superstudio’s vision of the built environment: a continuous grid appearing in many of the studio’s drawings represents a platform for all and a continuous network everyone can plug into and use when needed.

CONCEPT IDEA

The existence of a terraced house typology has defined the built environment of England over many centuries. It served its purpose from aristocracy in the Georgian Era all the way to the working-class population during Industrial Revolution in the Victorian Era. Much of East London’s terraced house fabric spans back over a century, this can also be spotted from some of the buildings being worn out leaving gaps in otherwise richly densified grid. However, this slowly decaying fabric opens up possibilities for diversification, new structures and typologies to be introduced.

Load-bearing walls of a typical Victorian terraced house were modified to a universal core allowing greater flexibility and giving it a sense of temporality while floor slabs were divided into half floors to allow for privacy without solid borders and free flow of space.

Cantilevered floor slabs that rest on the structural core from one end, supported by tensile cables from the other, the cables bring the structure and live loads back to the core and down to the foundation.

STRUCTURE EXPLANATION

Triplex typology comprises of three solo typologies modified externally to coexist together.

Rather than treating them like three separate structures triplex typology brings a unifying element – a shared communal courtyard in the middle. This element brings about the idea of “public offering” and “mobile kitchen”. It serves as a gathering area for the triplex inhabitants as well as neighbouring communities.

The bigger the plot the more solo structures can fit in, therefore the bigger the courtyard.