Collaborative Health: A Social Housing Manifesto

What will the community of the future look like? We've been thinking about this question for a long time. We believe that the community of the future will be a mix of different income groups, a mix of people and nature. That's why we've been focusing on both social and health.

Health has been an issue for a long time, from the original building air circulation to today's energy efficient buildings, people have been trying to improve the experience of residents in buildings. But unlike buildings, human interaction comes from face-to-face communication, so a healthy building is first and foremost a social building, which is why we believe that social interaction and health are inextricably linked.

There are many ways to help people communicate, and Jane Jacobs once said that tall buildings have destroyed the traditional street space. I believe her emphasis was on the public social space of the people in the community. So, in the face of today's urban revitalization, what kind of community space can generate a sense of community? We sought answers not only from the United States, but also from other countries. But during our research, we found that the sense of community in different countries has these commonalities: a place to play sports that gives residents the motivation to gather daily, and a public space to communicate as a space to belong in the long term.

So how do these two interconnects? And most importantly, how does ecology intervene? We found that if the sports space is too large, then the living experience of the residents will be reduced and the living experience of a small group of people will be increased. From this we concluded that we need to increase the number of sports spaces for the residents while ensuring that everyone has a public space for communication. Another problem that is often encountered in architecture is how plants are integrated into the building. We have learned many interesting examples here. Many architects put plants in the atrium, but we felt that this did not allow all residents to experience the power of ecology. So, we created a double-height balcony on each floor to help the plants grow. This allows for socialization and wellness to be integrated into our building.

But also, today's buildings are not just traditional brick and wood or concrete structures. We need modular buildings that can be transported and reproduced. So square frames and variations in wall construction can both facilitate construction and enhance the experience of different spaces. The problem with today's modular buildings is that they are limited in size by trucking and lack interconnectivity and expandability. People don't like a homogeneous space, they like a space with variation, a spacious living room, a bedroom with a sense of enclosure.

Another problem with modular architecture is the use of materials. The other issue is the use of materials. What materials can be used for high mass production, and what materials can be compressed and folded during transportation, we think wood and glass. The high workability and long-term use of these two materials allows the cost to be reduced to a very low level. At the same time, people can touch the wooden walls and feel the changes in the building, which is not possible with steel structures.

Over time, as plants grow, the wooden walls will be covered with vegetation, which will further enhance their insulation properties, while the imprint of people's lives will remain in them, and the smell, humidity, and temperature will mix with each other to give people a long-term impression of the space. And this, the sense of community will really emerge, people not only realize the connection between people and space, but also stimulate people's independent initiative to maintain and promote community culture.