INTRO

Housing is a social condition that is able to determine the welfare of its inhabitant. The housing location and quality, which is influenced by the social environment, economy, culture, defines the life of the inhabitant. Welfare, security, assuredness of infrastructure, housing quality, environment quality and the human resources are the elements that should be sustainable. Housing as a physical function, is a shelter that is designed with physical building quality. Housing as a social function is reviewed based on the inhabitant’s behavior (both individually and socially) with its environment.

While Technology and medical advances enable people to live longer, healthier lives, this brings up problems and concerns with overpopulation and overcrowding. As the population increases, so does the need for living space. This problem cannot be overlooked. Otherwise, the destruction of the planet and its inhabitants is inevitable. People are starting to look to the vertical city concept as a solution to this growing and unavoidable problem. With limited land available, it is a fact and unavoidable that the house should be built vertically. The question is whether the offered vertical housing can be accepted by the community and what the problems are faced.

The term of vertical housing can be replaced with the meaning of multi-storey housing. Vertical housing should be efficient, flexible, attractive and a good solution to live for families, as compared to a single house, because it can save expenses for daily maintenance. It is also associated with the capabilities and ease of adapting to the situation in urban areas.

Generally, the basic concept of vertical housing policy is to put people who usually come from landed condition into vertical experience. There are several consequences associated with the implementation of vertical housing approaches, such as changes in the behavior or habits of occupants, the impact on the surrounding environment, changes in the value of land and others.  Living in a different circumstances, in this case is that move from landed home to vertical housing, also means having a different experience. The low-income people, who often live in situations of low-rise and equipped with inadequate or minimum infrastructure, then shifted to the vertical housing with different standards, both in terms of physical and social. The new situation also encourages the adaptation of their habits with the new neighbors’ related conditions and living processes aspect. Correspondingly, there is also the concept of adaptation and adjustment or modification of the housing. This point of view will also be useful in identifying the response of the people living in high-rise residential buildings. The inhabitant’s behavior gives meaning and identity to the space or house is an act to reach satisfaction to the inhabitant. Inhabitant behavior phenomena of vertical housing is different to that in horizontal housing. The change of horizontal housing concept to vertical housing concept is not just a matter of physical building, as result of limited available land and the need of shelter, it also induces change in the human behavior inhabiting the vertical housing.

 

DESIGN CHALLENGE

For this year award, Eskan Bank is asking students to develop an efficient  vertical housing solution in Bahrain in which is it receive acceptance socially, environmentally and physically. Culture traditions and social habits define who we are and how we live but, these also evolve and adapt to new technologies, and lifestyles. Despite all the changes occurred in Bahraini society, there is also permanence in the way people relate to one another and use space. Therefore, the challenge is to adapt to the new concept of living (both internally within the family or the social relationship and interaction with the neighbors). 

The students are asked to study what is permanent and what has changed in family life? - What is Eco-living and how to adapt this concept within the Bahraini lifestyle? Rethinking the meaning of personalization within the housing community and reaching the inhabitant’s satisfaction. 

In the past 5 years, surveys made to Bahrainis on housing related topics reveal an extraordinary and consistent resistance towards vertical living solutions. The main concerns relate to the desire of owning land, the need for future extension (extended families) and overall desire for self-building. Considering the history of housing in Bahrain, marked mainly by low rise solutions (detached, semi-detached and row assembly) and mid-rise (4 to 6 floors) solutions between 1979-2012, and only in recent years focusing on the high-rise tower assembly (central core circulation with parking platform in the first floors), it is understandable Bahrainis resistance: the new high-rise developments promote a very different lifestyle from the old Bahraini fareej. The communal block composed by extended families and neighbors introverted houses, sharing daily life tasks, daily needs and life events in mostly semi-private spaces has given way to introverted tower blocks, normally with parking on the first levels, detaching residential functions from the street level and the proximity to services, facilities and outdoor communal spaces. The residential units themselves while extroverted to the outside world, are normally served by a double loaded corridor which reduces opportunities for encounter amongst neighbors. There is also little opportunity for personalization, extension, or adaptation in the form of self-building - time stands still.  

It is therefore, important to understand Bahrainis needs and desires and explore alternative housing solutions that explore feelings of community, hierarchies of public space, self-sufficiency and flexibility of Bahraini society.

 Exploring the development of housing solutions for dense urban areas, characterized by low to mid-rise developments is as important for the healthy urban growth of cities as high-rise developments and could perform important functions of consolidating existing urban fabric and promoting the healthy neighborhood.

This project will focus on developing a the collective living model of going from horizontal to vertical which implies shared communal spaces that need to be maintained and cared by all, taking into consideration the traditional Bahraini housing character in todays’ horizontal living model.

Students need to address the challenge of bringing the horizontal street life experience into a vertical model. How to create a continuous flow of spaces and facilities that enable the same type of communal feeling that the street gives the inhabitants.

A housing project in a consolidated urban area, needs to promote safe pedestrian movement, complement deficiencies of the neighborhood in terms of services, facilities and open spaces, and an integrated design with its surroundings. These projects are, many times, more traditional in terms of the social norms and cultural values, which would also highlight the need for the design to understand those needs both from the new residents and the existing neighbors. 

It is commonly accepted that high-quality residential structures are much more than efficient floor plans but, above all about all levels of mediation between the urban realm and the private refuge of the home. As all buildings but more, incisive in housing typologies, the negotiation of boundaries and thresholds, is of great importance for the spatial and social success of housing projects. In general, we can divide these different levels of interfaces in 4 categories: 

- Urban context: related to building form and how it dialogues to the surrounding urban structure;  

- Ground-floor zone: the dialogue and privacy gradients that mediate the transition between public and private zones in a vertical high-rise self-efficient living model, dialogue with surroundings and complexity of different vertical & horizontal circulations techniques; 

- Building structure: related to relationship with the street; orientation/views; type of stacking; internal circulation; and dwelling organization; 

- Façade: related to overall aesthetics – dressing, protecting, opening, covering, masking, veiling, form surface, landscape, cityscape, image, folding, appropriating, etc.