Social housing design concept vying for Global Award
MELBOURNE: A radical social housing design concept is vying for a Global Award.
The houses subvert the traditional logic where the rooms leads to the backyard, to the inside and the intimacy, and leave it to the rooms to connect with the outside and the streets. The living rooms get enlighten because they are not only connected to the outside but to the backyard, which can be transformed into a small orchid, a garden or a joyful area, with a grill or a small swimming pool. The social, service and private areas are well delimited because on the ground floor, there are rooms, kitchen and a service area and on the higher pavement, there are rooms, a social bathroom and a suite.
The market dynamic, its mood and constant changes on the political and financial tacks suggested the change of some of the unit, the sobrados that were initially thought to the terrain units, keeping some of the characteristics from the original sobrado, as the rooms that open to the outside and to the backyard, for example. In conclusion, despite the attempts to distinguish through the colors and the grids, with higher walls than the usual ones – on an area that are becoming stronger as a citadel, and expecting the desire of change to be softened, reality shows that is very hard to expect the constructor to keep the original characteristics of the project, as they search for a false sense of security . These changes break the sense of unit of the houses making the streets even more unsafe.
Novo Jardim Social Housing is an entrant in this years Global Awards in London in September.
