National Thesis Competition: Entry No. 2018-05

TENEMENT HYBRID DOWN SIDE UP

The tenements nowadays are proof that people from the urban poor can change and improve their lives. As the time goes by, its people grow. It is evident with the presence of hybridization (commercial spaces such as sari-sari stores) in every unit of the tenement. In conclusion, the people wants to grow but the available spaces from their residential units limit this chance of improvement. 

Tenement Hybrid Downside Up will transpose this housing problem of space limitation into a new typology of housing through transposing horizontality into verticality, downside into upside, and allowing the structure and units to expand and change. In short, tenement hybrid is an architecture that grows. 

It will be a modular structure wherein there will be framings and modular housing units constructed on site with sustainable materials and designed to be expandable. Through flexibility and adaptability, the housing modules can be manipulated the way the user prefer. As time goes by, the number of user increases or changes his behavior and would want to have a bigger space. The expansions are limited to (3) types: 

A. Down Expansion 

It is dedicated for commercial expansions. Since it expands down, it allows to zone commercial areas together. 

B. Side Expansion 

It is for residential expansion with a bigger area. 

C. Up Expansion 

It is dedicated for residential expansion with different functions and types 

Down expansions would create a block of “pinoy” commercial spaces; it will be composed of a sari-sari store, computer shop, barber shop, gym, nursery, “karinderya”. It is too many to enumerate everything but as a picture, it is the daily setting of what you can see in a typical “pinoy” neighborhood. Our daily living happens in our neighborhood, we go out to go to recreational areas, we go to buy at a store, we go out to buy food, and we interact with other people. That is the typical neighborhood that we have. The thesis focus on translating everything pinoy in spatial and design context. 

Introducing forward motion (Up) would allow expansion the air voids. This would also create void at the center for expansion through alternating pattern of up and side. When 2 “up units” paired together would create voids. And these voids are for the vertical neighborhood connection “vertical squares and solids”. 

These solids allow vertical circulation and connection of the whole development, (aside from horizontal connections created by down expansions.) These solids are designed together by the partnering unit (cluster) and come up with their own; it can be for production, recreation, education and sustainability. 

The most powerful thing that can change everything in this world is time. And architecture should flow together with time. It has to grow and improve. How come that it can improve with time? It is with the aid of the people, as time goes, the people change, as they change, they create their architecture. The tenement hybrid. It is the design of the people. 

What makes up the Tenement Hybrid Down Side Up? Is it the steel that supports the whole structure? Is it the concrete that makes the structure stable? Or is it sustainable materials that compose each and every units’ walls? The important component that makes up this bold structure is dreams and aspirations. The motivation of the people to get up from their downsides. The gear that turns their life around. The dream to change their lives. Each house unit is composed of dreams making the tenement hybrid an edifice of dreams. “a house with a dream, a house with a bright future.”

TENEMENT HYBRID DOWN SIDE UP: Transposing Pinoy Lifestyle in Space and Design
PAUL CHRISTIAN D. AQUINO
POLYTECHNIC UNIVERSITY OF THE PHILIPPINES

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