– Rutopie – rural, village, future.
Because of the changing world of work – especially the home office-, the new work-life balance and the pandemic, many people are moving back to the countryside. But there is not enough affordable space for all the people, because we don‘t chance the way of growing villages.
The biggest problem ist the single-family house. The well-known problems of this building typology are the low density, the lack of flexibility and isolation within the neighborhood. So how do we create housing in the future that adapts to the changing needs of residents and their life stages, that is efficient, denser and more sustainable, that prevents the sprawl of the landscape, but at the same time maintains the character of the village? A place where people can live, work, shop and relax. This paper is primarily concerned with developing a formal design for the settlement of tomorrow. Step I: we worked out parameters, which should served as a guideline for the future growing of villages and small towns. Step II: these parameters will be used to plan a settlement design on a real plot of land, which will attempt to find a possible solution for the settlement of tomorrow:
Step I:
Densification: In order to slow down urban sprawl and create affordable housing for all.
Flexibility: Our life situation is changing, so is our requirement for housing.
Balance between community and privacy: We need both.
Participation: Feel home.
Mix up the generations: There can be greate symbiosis between them.
Shares Ownership: Cooperatives make living affordable for everyone and people can create community.
Mix of functions: In order to revitalize settlements and villages in the future, they need a mix of different functions instead of a mono-structure of housing.
Sharing approaches: In order to deal more ecologically with resources such as space and materials, sharing approaches should also be pursued more in rural areas.
Step II:
The actual design is based on the principle of the matryoshka- a russian doll. Just as the matryoshka can be opened up more and more to reveal new layers, the design can be divided into different sizes and elements. The smaller the element, the more private its character.
The different levels create a balance between community and privacy. A neighborhood that allows both states to coexist in varying degrees of intensity and enables fluid transitions. The projects creates a settlement with 48 housing units. (Just to compare: with one family houses and the necessary accesses, the area would fit round about 27 housing units.) Still every unit has their own little garden, their own entrance from the outside and enough space. Their are different type and sizes of units, people change their flat, when their living situation require this, while living in the same neighborhood. Because of this, we can safe space and make living affordable for everyone.
