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• Rural India| 2012

• Affordable Housing
• Size: 4.5 Acres
• Concept: New Townships

In the middle of a global financial crisis, Indias growth has been 9% GDP in the last few years. As a result, cities are been created from scratch in the vast rural India. The goal of increasing affordable middle class housing within these new developments is crucial for sustainable growth. The vision of new cities needs to be turned into reality within a matter of months instead of years due to population growth, changing the overall approach without sacrificing quality design standards. A new construction system is being implemented in order to be capable of such an immense task. As architects, we hold ourselves responsible for designing spaces that are more than just a resting place, but rather a home for the experience of life, raising a family and doing so sustainably. How could we accomplish such a complex task in such short period of time?

A community needs a soul if is to become a true home for human beings. You, the people must give it this soul
-Pope John Paul II

We started by asking ourselves, what is the SOUL of a community?
We believe that the answer is the people whom live within those communities, which we prefer to view as tangible Social Networks.
Thus, we are designing spaces that would stimulate social interaction as our goal is to encourage connectivity between people.

The designed spaces are areas of sharing; in a house, the dining room or living room often acts as a community area. In a building, the lobby, swimming pool, playground or the gym would be the shared areas. Within a neighborhood, parks, theaters, and sport facilities are communally shared spaces. We feel compelled to further generate the social fabric (sharing areas) within the residence, the neighborhood and the townships. This social fabric will connect people and will produce a healthy growth of the development.

The amount of units intended to be built are up beyond a million units. Even though the labor in India is remarkably affordable, the requirements for building cities with such tight time and budget constraints took us into working with prefabricated and modularized construction systems.
New Factories will be built to fabricate the modules for the townships. Each one of those modules will be finished in the factories. This way there will be excellent quality control and the construction will never be interrupted by inclement weather, common in many areas of India.

The System will allow dimensions of a maximum of 5m by 15m. We have designed 5 modules (A,B,C,D,E) for a single load corridor and the equivalent in a double load corridor. A combination of different modules will generate a Studio (A), a 1 Bedroom Apartment ( C+B+C) or a 2 Bedroom Apartment (D+E).

Every apartment will be surrounding a common space, the social fabric, where kids and families can interact and enjoy community involvement in a safe environment.

The housing units are intended to gather in clusters, around the patios and open spaces creating a more dynamic social fabric where sustainable community living is encouraged and embraced. This is our answer and vision for what we envision as The Soul of the Community.