Friday 24 February 2017

Housing: Variety through repetition

 

1_ VIEW-web

Designing a house form that works and that can be replicated to produce variety is fun, and economical, but not straightforward.

7_VIEW I-web

This project, by Organon Architecture, has 36 houses of two types; two types whose lower floors are identical and whose upper floors differ only in their orientation – and in that difference lies the difference that produces the difference: two house types in which the way they come together creates the structure of the composition, produces the interest, creates (with the simple form becoming complex by repetition and the relationship to the other repeated units) creating the relationship of composition to landscape.

2_web

Repetition means ease of assembly. Repetition means making use of industrialisation to reduce costs and waste. Repetition, here, producing variety instead of conformity.

That’s they way nature does it. That’s the way to make it work.

I think it does.

Could you live here?

5_VIEW INTERIOR-web

[Cross-posted to the Organon Architecture Blog].

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

No. I like my 1 acre section in the subhurbs too much although the house design in isolation is appealing. I also have a dislike for flat roofing.

3:16

Anonymous said...

I like the design. And the variety. And economical. But I'd go for something smaller and simpler.

MarkT said...

On the face of it seems a great way to get the economy that comes with repetition, and still some variety - so very interested in this. The only proviso being the land needs to be relatively cheap and plentiful. If you try and apply it to a rectangular urban lot of medium or high density where land values aren't low, any difference in orientation will generally mean less units and therefore drive up the unit cost. Is this a theoretical study or a live project that might be built?