HELLO WOOD 2016:

MIGRANT HOUSE MIGRANT HOUSING

Urban-Think Tank, ETH Zürich

HELLO WOOD: MIGRANT HOUS(ING) URBAN-THINK TANK

Urban-Think Tank Chair of Architecture and Urban Design D-ARCH, ETH Zürich Professor Alfredo Brillembourg & Professor Hubert Klumpner Workshop Leaders: Danny Wills, Gianmaria Socci

Project Concept: For the first phase of Project Village, we built the Migrant House, a structure that provided the initial point of orientation for a community of travelers. Its towering form created a sense of identity for this disparate group of individuals. Its open frames were slowly filled in with remnants of past lives, and the resulting bricolage represented the collective embodied spirit of those that temporarily chose to inhabit its spaces while they planted foundations within the broader Project Village. Now that the initial seeds have been sewn, it’s time to grow a community. Our proposal for Project Village II seeks to transform the idea of the Migrant House into an idea of Migrant Hous(ing). Each individual will arrive to the site with his or her individual unit – a series of rotating frames that can configure into a multitude of spaces based on personal need. These units have material limitations that prevent the individual from building complete solitary housing. However, as the individuals begin to form relationships – friendships, groups, lovers – the units can transform. Only through a collective force can the units fulfill their structural potential and exert their limitless combinatorial possibilities. It is here where we will test the true nature of community building. Our current work at Urban-Think Tank focuses on practical strategies of housing while remaining embedded within community-driven processes. The Migrant Hous(ing) project will build off of our ideas of modular construction, community capacity building, rapid and incremental upgrading, and quick, pre-fabricated assembly and disassembly methods. The structures themselves will be migrant in nature. Their ability to be transported and rapidly installed, transformed and dismantled is key, and a major performative aspect of the project. How do displaced individuals begin to establish relationships with other traveling migrants? What are the spatial structures that allow assemblage, growth, reconfiguration, and transformation? Can architecture preserve individual identity while integrating within a community?

HELLO WOOD: MIGRANT HOUS(ING) URBAN-THINK TANK CONCEPT

1. Individual unit (folded)

Individual Unit: Each “migrant” has the possibility to customize material interventions and transformation scenarios.

2. Individual unit (partially unfolded)

3. Individual unit (unfolded with additional surfaces)

HELLO WOOD: MIGRANT HOUS(ING) URBAN-THINK TANK CONCEPT

Community Growth: As each “migrant” forms relationships with other migrants, the structures change shape and grow in potential, creating the village.