MONOGRAM TO POLYGRAM A POLYVALENT REPROGRAMMING OF MODERN SOCIAL HOUSING ESTATES

Academic Project - Design Practice as part of MA in Architecture and Historic Urban Environments

Academic Year 2021-2022

The Bartlett School of Architecture

Tutor: Lakshm Priya Rajendran

Team with: Francisca Lopez Pani; Sema Nur

Guldermir

This project is a counter-proposal to the undelrlying trend of social housing Winstanley Estate demolitions occurring in the South of London. An attempt to bring an alternative model to modern estate renewals by reinforcing their physcial and social assets in unison. Winstanely Estate endures the threat of London’s neoliberal revelopment pressure unless a viable model outdoing the existing physical, economical and social conditions overrules.

Monogram to Polygram eplores what closeness means in a housing block in a programmatic and tactile dimension, breaking down wals, sharing common uses, enriching collective domesticity and social boundaries.

The model transforms the unused elevated ground floors into communal spaces for shared use, answering directly to user’s needs. Education and skill training spaces, common kitchen and laundrettes are proposed among others - to reinforce a cohesive togetherness and utilize the richness of various ethnicities residing in the estate.

FORMER STORAGE REUSED AS SKILLS WORKSHOP - INCREASE RESIDENTS CAPACITIES OF SUSTAINING THEIR LIVING.

VACANT ELEVATED GROUND FLOOR BECOMES A COMMON KITCHEN AND LAUNDRETTE FOR BOTH INDIVIDUAL AND COMMON-USE.

1. No demolition - Unequivocal decision on unnecessarydemolition; 2. No loss of social housing units; 3. Maintain the existing -Explore the potential and add value to it, test the possibilities and the capacities of space;

4. ReprogrameAdd new functions that respond to the present needs;

5. Celebrate the diversity of people in the estate;

6. Generate income, improve connectivity and create greater community coherence - An economic model that is self-regulatory and allows for living and financial sustainability of the estate; 7. Promote active participation and collective ownership.

Areas

The design proposal tackles on the walled division of housing units by challenging spatial boundaries of the ‘individual’ and the ‘shared’. The potential of such modernist structures resides in their ability to absorb change. The proposal keeps the concrete structure, but multiplies the uses and changing its monoprogram but a multitude of uses.

Ultimately, the proposal attempt to reshaper the community anchors in a selected block of Winstanley Estate - through self-regulation and self-maintenance of tis own community, independent of regulatory bodies

Education & Skills Workshop Scenario Proposal Plan

Common Kitchen Scenario Proposal Plan

Programmatic Schematic Section Proposal - Skills Workshop

Water System

100 LAKES RETHINKING WATER - LAND

Bachelor Thesis

Regional Study, Urban Study, Pilot Projects for Sustainable Development

Graduation Project- Double Joint Research-Studio Epoka University (Albania) & Katholic Uni. Leuven (Belgium)

Tutors: Valbona Koci, Ilir Nase 2013, Albania

A strategic study on urban scale for the broader area of Tirana, the coastal Durres and Kruje. The existence of a large number of artificial lakes, remnants of a communist-time project, is taken as a trigger to set up a study of the area as a whole. The study is aiming at scenarios for the future development of the area on different levels, with an underlying aim of a long-term vision.

Infrastructure Driven Urbanization Overlap of systems

Water-Systems Zoom in

/ vineyards, Kashar Area mapping urbanization, Kashar Area urbanization and hydrology overlap urbanization on port & capital city

Proposal of a Local Scenario

How to develop a scenario that is able to re- use an existing capital of infrastructure integrated with the land capacity, adapted to today’s land-use conditions?

Among the land capacity of the area, vineyards reposes a majority among other natural assets, through the hills and Mediterranean climate. Winemaking tradition can set a distinctiveness which makes it possible to pursue, through architecture.

Wine like a local !

The scenario of the vineyards, winery, and winehouse copes respectively with the three land-use conditions of the context, using the land-cover capacities, as well as the remnant infrastructure encompassing in cross-section through: cultivation, production, selling.