CAH
Construction System for Affordable Housing
BCN – NYC AffordableHousing Challenge
The biggest affordable housing problem in BCN-NYC is the land scarcity and the construction costs. We propose to densify by a light, fast and economic construction system, CAH, adaptable for rehabilitation (overlapping or adhering to the buildings) and to new construction (rising from the ground).
1. City
The urban land in BCN and NYC is practically occupied, which makes building affordable housing on the little land available costly. The solution we propose is to densify by means of rehabilitation of existing buildings and new constructions, without affecting the ground, by means of new economic construction techniques, light, adaptable, and quick to install. The proposed constructive system, CAH, can be built in the air, with few supports on the ground, even to renovate deteriorated or underutilized sectors in the city, like highways, ports, transport stations, etc.
2. Blocks and buildings
The proposed system can be adapted for rehabilitating existing buildings, by overlapping in the roofs or adding to the facades, and for new constructions, rising from the ground
3. Housing
We plan an adaptive housing system that allows the flexibility in its usage, such as spaces shared by communities (like kitchens, social areas, bathrooms), people participatory design, and with the possibility of self-construction over time
4. Construction
The system has a rigid component, a metallic spatial structure assembled on the site, composed of knots and scalable elements that allow adaptation to existing buildings, and another flexible component consisting of factory-made housing modules, hoisted by cranes to place on the site
5. Sustainability
Integral sustainability in the social aspects is sought, through the interaction of families in the community spaces (cohousing), the participative design of the houses (co-design), and community gardens; economic aspects through, occupying the air that has no price, with fast techniques and low prices; and environmental aspects: with reusable materials and processed in the industry, with low environmental impact
6. Previous experiences
The proposed system CAH has a pair of precedents, the ENSAMBLE System with a couple of patents, in Spain and Colombia, where it has been tested and implemented (www.sistemaensamble.com), and the experience of urban proposals such as ‘Medellin Experimental Social Housing’ awarded in PisoPiloto, exposed in the Museum of Antioquia and CCCB in BCN.
7. Added value
Re-densification and renovation of depressed or underutilized sectors of the city; expansion of existing housing; economy, flexibility and speed in housing construction; participatory design and cohousing with communities; integral sustainability; originality and innovation of the system
This proposal takes up some experimental ideas, such as the Special City (Friedman), plug-in city (Archigram), the Mat Building, the Unite d’habitation wine rack (Le Corbusier), Home delivery (MOMA) and combines them in a unique system with different possibilities for rehabilitation or new buildings.
INCLUSIVITY,
CITIZEN ENGAGEMENT
AND CO-CREATION
By reducing construction costs, affordable housing is available for more low-income people, like immigrants, retirees, single mothers and fathers, unemployed, elderly and young people. People could participate in co-designing their homes by computer programs downloaded even on their cell phones.
PREVIOUS EXPERIENCES
The proposed system CAH has a pair of precedents, the experience of urban proposals such as ‘Medellin Experimental Social Housing’ awarded in Archmedium, exposed in the Museum of Antioquia and CCCB in BCN, and the ENSAMBLE System with a couple of patents, in Spain and Colombia, where it has been tested and implemented.
MEDELLIN EXPERIMENTAL SOCIAL HOUSING
Urban Orchards Memorial
Every year Medellín receives aprox 37,938 people who have been displaced by violence, they build their own homes on the hillsides of the city and over the years they have adapted themselves to urban life, working in construction or informal trade. The memorial of urban orchards re-thinks the countryside lifestyle finding ways to adapt rural life in the city. The project falls within a traditional city block, sewing with a structure of crops the buildings preserved and creating a system of courtyards generating urban dynamics within the block.
The interior of the houses builds itself gradually as needed according to the economic means of the families that inhabit them. The housing group is self-sustainable, accompanied by a system of urban orchards and a first level destined to commercial activity. Food production for own consumption, exchanges and sales, take place. In this way, farmers keep cultivating as they did on the countryside while justice is made and they get their land back and return to their place of origin.
ENSAMBLE SYSTEM
Our value proposition consists mainly in offer transportable housing solutions, tailored to the needs of our customers and friendly to the environment.