Weysen envisions an affordable housing prototype that could be used to convert former industrial sites into residential neighborhoods. Here are a few key excerpts from his proposal:
How would you describe it?
The project provides a valid strategy to inhabit neglected industrial sites. It provides a new, environmentally friendly housing typology that creates an affordable and sustainable alternative to trend related loft living. It is envisioned within a ‘Do It Yourself’ formula, has a small construction time and low building cost.
How does it pertain to energy?
The project reflects an environmentally conscious living style, stimulating a face-to-face relation to the seasons. It provides optimal isolation during winter (U-value of 0.45) within a compact volume (compactness of 0.76), and extends the liveable footprint in summer, when less heating is required.
What makes it important?
The new variables in the post-industrial era have radically altered our traditional living habits. The near doubling of the human population every forty years, economic globalization, new communication networks and working patterns put huge pressures on resources. The implications of such exploitations have been ignored for three-quarters of a century. Building sustainable architecture in the aftermath of such neglect [requires] a revised conceptualization in response to this myriad of contemporary concerns about the effects of human activity. It becomes a creative adaptation and balance of environmental, sociocultural, and economic requirements. This project could be considered such an adaptation to those requirements. It reconciles the history of any site or building with present-day demands for living. It stimulates the rejuvenation of abandoned places and their immediate surroundings by claiming the spaces for new forms of living. It rethinks conventional, luxurious loft living, paragon of spatial profusion, to a composition in flexible and affordable living, the result being a housing typology, averse to any stereotype.
The project also acknowledges that, in order to create a more sustainable building practice, any valid building alternative must address the issue of our economic-based culture. Going green is not a possibility unless it can be shown to be a more economical alternative. This project has therefore been envisioned as a ‘Do It Yourself’ project, giving people with a small budget the opportunity to construct their own house for a mere 25.000 euros. Its flexible layout and basic structure (wooden skeleton, prefab panels) not only allows for easy construction, but also provides for different infill, each time creating a peculiar relationship with the existing building envelope. … It’s a valid alternative to present-day living. It considers architecture as a living, evolving thing, providing a protective carapace, which constantly adapts to local influences. It should be seen as being continuous with, and emerging from, the life of those who inhabit it, behaving symbiotically and metabolically.
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